THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


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\f:  is  D'''^  o"     '       last  Ht'     ♦aimed  helov. 


SIAI2  HOui...-.^  ^  ^.a.>^i., 
uos  jajiGHiiEs,  cjaii. 


/ 


THE  SOCIAL  MIND 


AND 


EDUCATION 


BY 


GEORGE   EDGAR  VINCENT 

/J  2L  J  S 

Assistant  Professor  of  Sociology  in  The  University  of  Chicago 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 

1897 

All  rights  reserved 

;     C    1906 


Copyright,  1897 
By  The  Macmillan  Company 


u 


CONTENTS. 

Chapter  Page 

Introduction    • v 

I.     The   Social   Mind   and   Its   Development     ii 

II.     Social  Philosophy  as  a  "Scientia  Scien- 

TIARUM  " 39 

III.  The  Development  of  Social  and  of  In- 

dividual Thought 66 

IV.  The  Social  Mind  and  Education  ....      91 
V.     The  Integration  of  Studies 114 

\VI.     A  Tentative  Curriculum •  .    136 

Bibliography 147 

Index 153 


INTRODUCTION. 

The  task  which  this  essay  undertakes  is  one  of  organi- 
zation, rather  than  of  investigation,  the  putting  together  in 
relations  of  interdependence,  or  mutual  reinforcement,  of 
ideas  which  have  been  worked  out  in  connection  with  sev- 
eral more  or  less  isolated  pursuits. 

In  terms  of  a  proposition  to  be  presented  in  Chapter  I., 
the  attempt  belongs  to  that  synthetic  movement  which  is 
one  of  the  factors  in  the  progress  of  both  the  social  and 
the  individual  mind.  An  effort  is  made  to  bring  con- 
ceptions from  social  philosophy  to  bear  upon  the  problem 
of  education,  with  the  hope  that  there  may  result  both  clar- 
ification of  ideas  and  greater  definiteness  of  purpose. 

The  thought  of  social  philosophy  which  sees  in  the 
development  of  society  the  growth  of  a  vast  psychic  or- 
ganism, to  which  individuals  are  intrinsically  related,  in 
which  alone  they  find  self-realization,  is  of  the  highest 
significance  for  the  teacher,  to  whom  it  suggests  both  aim 
*^    and  method. 

,^  While  this  undertaking  is,  in  general,  synthetic,  its 
pj  scope  is  so  vast  that  emphasis  will  be  laid  chiefly,  if  not 
exclusively,  upon  the  cognitive  function  of  society  and 
of  the  individual.  Such  one-sidedness  of  treatment  is 
adopted  deliberately,  and  not  from  any  failure  to  recognize 
the  organic  unity  of  the  mind.  A  complete  view  of  the 
subject  would  include  all  the  intimately  interdependent 
aspects  of  both  social  and  individual  consciousness.  Again, 
the  view  is  confined  to  social  life,  as  the  sphere  of  man's 
activity,   and  as  affording  the  immediate  material   of  his 


vi  Introduction. 


science  and  philosophy.  The  widest  treatment  would 
comprehend  a  cosmic  i)hilosophy ;  but  for  obvious  reasons 
it  is  necessary  to  limit  an  inquiry  already  covering  an 
immense  field.  This  primary  synthesis  must  itself  be 
further  combined  in  the  broader  conception  of  the  uni- 
verse. 

The  argument  of  this  essay,  in  its  main   outlines,  is  as 

follows  : 

In  the  i)rocess  of  social  evolution  men's  ideas,  judg- 
meiUs,  and  desires  have  been  combined  into  products 
which,  transmitted  from  generation  to  generation,  react 
upon  individuals,  and  are  in  turn  modified  by  them. 
These  "capitalizations  of  experience"  and  their  unceasing 
reactions  form  what  may  be  described  as  the  social  mind. ' 

The  social  tradition,  in  the  course  of  its  development, 
has  been  enriched  by  the  successive  separation  or  analysis 
of  the  world  of  phenomena  and  the  generalization  and  re- 
combination of  them  in  explanations  or  theories.  Gradu- 
ally out  of  empiricism  and  "common  sense"  have  been 
evolved  more  and  more  methodic  examination  and  purpose- 
ful explanation,  /.  c,  science  and  philosophy.  Although 
differing  chiefly  in  range  and  exactness  of  explanation, 
science  and  philosophy  are  therefore  in  a  broad  sense  com- 
plementary processes  of  the  social  mind,  which  seeks  not 
only  knowledge  of  details,  but  a  conception  of  the  whole. 
Philosophy,  in  one  of  its  functions  at  least,  is  a  "science  of 
the  sciences." 

The  race,  confronted  from  the  beginning  by  a  complex 
of  physical,  vital,  mental,  and  social  phenomena,  has 
analyzed  and  combined  these  facts,  has  slowly  formed 
nuclei  of  phenomena  related  by  obvious  causes,  and, 
struggling  always  for  unity,  has  filled  up  the  gaps  between 

>  For  purposes  of  brief  exposition  here  this  concept  is  personified  in  a  manner 
which  might  be  misleading,  but  for  the  fuller  explanation  of  the  term  to  be  given 
In  Chapter  I. 


Introduction.  vii 


such  groups  by  explanations,   more  or  less  anthropomor- 
phic. 

In  the  lapse  of  time  these  gaps  have  grown  smaller  and 
smaller,  until  with  the  marvelous  growth  of  the  nature 
groups,  which  in  many  cases  have  quite  touched  borders, 
the  explanations  have  become  more  and  more  definitely 
and  immediately  causal.  A  group  of  social  theories  has 
always  been  present  in  the  collective  tradition,  but  in 
comparative  isolation  and  vague  consciousness.  The 
modern  tendency  has  brought  this  group  into  close  rela- 
tion with  the  others,  which  are  now  seen  to  be  subordinate 
to  it.  So  that  the  science  of  society  (in  a  broad  sense, 
not  Sociology  as  a  special  discipline)  is  being  recognized 
as  the  scientia  scientiariim,  a  true  philosophy.  Modern 
social  philosophy  is  the  latest  conscious  synthesis  of  the 
social  mind. 

The  sciences,  or  groups  of  knowledge,  which  have  been 
reflectively  organized  out  of  the  experiences  of  the  race, 
are  all  related  to  social  life,  which  is  their  point  of  de- 
parture and  the  common  centre  to  which  they  return. 
Social  philosophy  comprehends  society  by  organizing  into 
a  unity  these  elements  of  analysis. 

The  parallel  between  the  development  of  the  individual 
and  that  of  the  race,  asserted  by  poets,  scientists,  and 
philosophers,  has  of  late  been  subjected  to  criticism.  It 
has  been  pointed  out  that  there  are  "short-cuts"  by 
which  in  individual  evolution  whole  stages  of  the  race's 
growth  may  be  omitted.  Educationally,  the  theory  of 
parallel  development  is  fruitful  in  suggestions,  but  it  may 
easily  be  made  the  basis  of  artificial  schemes,  such  as 
certain  doctrinaire  forms  of  the  ' '  Culture  Epoch  theory, 
which  assume  that  the  products  of  different  stages  of 
social  development,  rather  than  life  itself,  must  appeal  to 
the  child  at   corresponding   periods  of    his  development. 


viii  Introduction. 


The  real  parallel  is  in  the  process,  the  progress  from 
analysis  to  synthesis,  and  in  the  gradual  development  of 
fully  self-conscious  effort  out  of  vaguely  conscious  activity. 

Education  sots  before  itself  the  task  of  relating  the  indi- 
vidual intrinsically  to  the  social  tradition  so  that  he  may 
become  an  organic  part  of  society.  It  aims  to  effect 
"short-cuts"  in  the  evolution  of  the  individual  mind,  but 
it  must  not  violate  the  general  laws  of  that  development. 
All  current  plans  for  the  concentration,  correlation,  or 
coordination  of  studies  deal  with  the  early  or  unconscious 
period  of  growth,  during  which  it  is  quite  as  important  to 
direct  and  systematize  the  process  of  analysis,  i.  e. ,  to  aid 
the  pupil  in  taking  apart  the  vague  unity  of  his  life  ex- 
periences, as  to  maintain  relations  between  these  parts  or 
studies. 

The  problems  of  the  earlier  stages  in  education  are 
being  attacked  vigorously,  but  the  analogy  of  race  de- 
velopment suggests  also  the  necessity  of  a  conscious  syn- 
thesis in  the  higher  education.  The  stress  there  is  now 
laid  upon  analysis,  upon  the  study  of  subjects,  and  separate 
disciplines,  while  the  complementary  process  of  combina- 
tion, or  integration,  is,  for  the  most  part,  left  to  chance, 
to  the  gradual  and  comparatively  planless  effort  of  the 
maturing  individual  to  arrange  his  scattered  knowledge 
into  a  coherent  theory  of  the  phenomena  which  his  daily 
life  presents.  It  should  be,  therefore,  a  definite  aim  of 
the  higher  education  to  direct  the  student  in  a  purposeful 
integration  of  his  various  pursuits,  a  putting  back  of  these 
abstractions  into  a  concrete  conception  of  life. 

No  study,  in  itself,  can  be  a  core  for  such  integration. 
Social  life  and  the  student  in  relation  to  it  form  the  real 
centre.  The  various  social  sciences,  conceived  broadly, 
may  be  made  to  serve  the  purpose  ;  literature,  regarded  as 
a  social  product,  mav  render  important  aid.      But  in  so  far 


Introduction.  ix 


as  these  instruments  are  useful  they  are  really  approxima- 
tions to  a  social  philosophy,  which  aims  to  recombine  into 
a  more  significant  organic  unity  all  the  kinds  of  knowl- 
edge which  have  been  analyzed  and  abstracted  out  of  the 
life  of  men. 

Obviously,  such  a  preliminary  philosophy  will  not  form 
a  stable  equilibrium  in  the  student's  mind.  His  in- 
creasingly complex  experiences,  varying  interests,  and 
maturing  observation  will  compel  continued  analysis  and 
synthesis.  But  this  consciously  directed  integration  will 
effect  a  "short-cut"  in  his  mental  development,  and  will 
help  to  secure,  with  economy  of  effort,  his  incorporation 
with  the  social  mind.  It  will  all  the  more  quickly  fit 
him  for  his  social  activities  and  will  the  sooner  enable  him 
to  contribute  something  to  the  progressive  organization  of 
the  social  tradition. 


THE  SOCIAL  MIND  AND  EDUCATION. 


CHAPTER  1. 

,5zoS 

THE   SOCIAL    MIND  AND    ITS    DEVELOPMENT. 

The  modern  conceotion  of  the  social  or  general  mind  is 
the  result  of  a  conscious  effort  to  discriminate  and  explain 
the  phenomena  which  have  their  origin  in  the  influence  of 
individual  minds  upon  each  other  in  society,  and  the 
action  and  reaction  between  individuals  and  the  accumu- 
lated psychical  resources  which  are  transmitted  from  gen- 
eration to  generation.  The  unconscious  or  empirical 
recognition  of  these  phenomena  has  long  found  expression 
in  such  phrases  as  "public  opinion,"  "popular  will,"  "the 
spirit  of  the  people,"  the  "Zeitgeist,"  the  "  ame  des 
peuples,"  and  is  vaguely  implied  in  the  adjective  "unan- 
imous." 

It  is  to  be  expected  that  thus  early  in  the  attempt  to 
mark  off  and  organize  the  phenomena  of  social  psychology 
there  should  be  decided  differences  of  opinion  both  as  to 
their  nature  and  as  to  the  concepts  by  which  they  may 
be  most  satisfactorily  expounded.  Without  attempting  to 
discuss  or  reconcile  these  conflicting  views,  we  shall  try  to 
describe  the  generally  established  facts  of  the  social  mind. 

At  the  outset  we  must  guard  against  the  dangers  which 
lurk  in  the  use  of  analogies.  There  can  be  no  facts  of 
collective  consciousness  outside  of  and  apart  from  individ- 
ual consciousness.  James  has  insisted  upon  this  in  his 
delightfully  concrete  way:  "Take  a  dozen  words,"  he 
says,    "and  take  twelve  men  and  tell  to  each  one  word. 


12  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

Then  stand  the  men  in  a  row  or  jam  them  in  a  bunch,  and 
let  each  think  of  his  word  as  intently  as  he  will  ;  nowhere 
will  there  be  a  consciousness  of  the  whole  sentence. 
The  private  minds  do  not  agglomerate  into  a  higher  com- 
pound mind."'  If,  however,  each  of  these  men  com- 
municate his  word  to  the  others,  and  by  dint  of  mutual 
suggestion  the  sentence  be  united  in  the  consciousness  of 
each,  the  group  may  be  regarded  as  of  one  mind,  and  the 
sentence,  a  result  of  cooperation,  is  a  social  product.  If  it 
be  symbolized  in  written  language,  it  takes  on  no  new  or 
really  objective  nature  but  is  simply  a  potentiality,  and  has 
no  actual  existence  as  thought  until  it  gets  itself  translated 
again  into  individual  consciousness.* 

From  the  earliest  beginnings  of  society  men  have  been 
cooperating  by  conflict,  discussion,  the  exercise  of  author- 
ity, and  the  imitation  of  leaders,  to  produce  social  ideas, 
/.  €.,  states  of  consciousness  common  to  whole  groups.* 
These  products,  symbolized  in  speech  or  written  language  * 
and  embodied  in  ceremonials,  customs,  and  laws,  have 
been  transmitted  from  age  to  age,  undergoing  constant 
modification  and  reorganization.* 

Simple  and  obvious  as  the  above  statement  seems  there 
is  a  fallacy  in  its  very  simplicity.     There  is  a  mechanical 

1  James  :  Psychology,  Vol.  I.,  p.  i6o. 

Fouillfee,  in  attacking  the  in>'stical  conceptions  of  the  German  Folk-psycholo- 
gists, is  strenuous  upon  this  point:  "  Ce  qu'on  appelle  la  conscience  nationale 
est  Ic  risultat  et  la  consonance  des  millions  de  pens6es  individuelles."  He  denies 
emphatically  that  there  is  "  fusion  de  toutes  les  consciences  individuelles  en  une 
sculc." — La  science  sociale  contemporaine ,  pp.  192-193. 

«  F.  H.  Giddings  :  Principles  of  Sociology ,  p.  146. 

•  "Un  chaos  d'id6es  ct  d'int6rfits  en  lutte  entre  individus  distincts  et  rapproch^s ; 
voila  Ic  premier  groupe  social ;  et  il  s'agit  avec  cela  de  former  le  faisceau  le  plus 
fort  ct  le  plus  volumineux  de  croyances  qui  se  confirment  ou  ne  se  contredisent 
pas,  de  dfsirs  qui  s'entraident  ou  ue  se  contrarient  pas."— G.  Tarde  :  La  logique 
sociaJe,  p.  96. 

«  A.  E.  Fr.  Schaffle :  Bau  und  Leben  des  socialen  k'orpers,  I.  Auf ,  Bd.  I.,  S.  94. 

»  W.  H.  Payne  describes  the  experiences  of  the  race  as  "  capitalized  and  trans- 
mitted "  from  generation  to  generation.    Edtuaiional  Review,  Vol.  X.,  p.  137. 


The  Social  Mmd  and  Its  Development.  13 

or  chemical  analogy  in  the  conception  of  ideas  being  com- 
bined into  products,  which  is  likely  to  mislead  unless  its 
use  be  carefully  guarded.  Every  modification  of  social 
thought  must  be  effected  in  the  mind  of  some  one  man, 
must  result  from  a  unified  state  of  individual  conscious- 
ness.' Otherwise  a  social  "mind-stuff"  theory*  or  an 
Herbartian  metaphysic  would  be  needed  to  explain  the 
phenomenon.  It  is  only  when  looked  at  in  a  general  way 
and  over  considerable  periods  that  this  movement  of  the 
social  mind  seems  to  assume  an  independent  and  some- 
what super-psychical  character.  There  is  a  distinct  ad- 
vantage in  taking  this  social  and  objective  point  of  view,  if 
only  the  really  individual  nature  of  the  elaboration  be  kept 
in  thought.  The  stream  of  social  consciousness  has  no 
other  channels  through  which  to  flow  than  those  of  indi- 
vidual minds.  It  may  be  frozen  into  symbolic  forms,  but 
melts  into  mobility  again  only  in  the  consciousness  of  man. 
Yet  it  would  be  a  serious  mistake  to  reduce  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  social  mind  to  those  of  individual  psy- 
chology merely. 

"The  spirit  of  the  people  [declares  Falckenberg]  is  not  a 
phrase,  an  empty  name,  but  a  real  force,  not  a  sum  of  the  individ- 
uals belonging  to  the  people,  but  an  encompassing  and  controlling 
power  which  brings  forth  in  the  whole  body  processes  {e.  g., 
language)  which  could  not  occur  in  individuals  as  such.  It  is 
only  as  a  member  of  society  that  any  one  becomes  truly  man. 
The  community  is  the  subject  of  the  higher  life  of  spirit."  ' 

There  is  an  idealism  about  such  a  paragraph  which  is 
suggestive  but  at  the  same  time  somewhat  vague.  Lewes 
speaks  more  definitely  :  "A  solitary  man  would  think  and 
feel  and  will  ;  but  he  would  no  more  fashion  his  feelings, 

1  Lewes  has  pointed  this  out  in  these  words  :  "  Nor  can  experience  be  likened 
to  any  complex  of  parts ;  it  is  no  mosaic  of  elements  ;  it  is  a  living,  developing, 
manifold  unity." — Problems  of  Life  and  Mind ;   The  Study  of  Psychology,  p.  i8o. 

»  James  :  loc.  cit..  Vol.  I.,  pp.  158-162. 

»  History  of  Modem  Philosophy  (tr.  by  Armstrong),  p.  623. 


14  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

thoughts,  and  volitions  into  conceptions  which  are  the 
formula:  of  knowledge  than  he  would  articulate  them  in 
words."'  Even  the  forms  of  thought,  elaborated  through 
a  long  period  of  social  development,  are  transferred*  to 
the  individual.  The  contents  of  his  mind  are  in  large 
measure  social  products.  Through  symbols  of  many 
kinds  the  thoughts  of  others  past  and  present  reproduce 
themselves  in  his  consciousness.  Durkheim  sees  in  the 
reaction  of  social  products  upon  the  individual  a  veritable 
compulsion,  the  domination  of  an  independent  entity  over 
subjects  powerless  to  resist.' 

This  is  an  extreme  statement  of  the  relation,  yet  it  con- 
tains much  truth.  The  conceptions  which  have  been 
formulated  during  the  development  of  society  become 
"necessities  of  thought"  to  the  individual.^  The  accu- 
mulated and  organized  observations  and  explanations  of 
the  race  are  communicated  to  him  and  either  constitute 
his  own  view  of  reality  or  form  a  basis  for  further  advance 
and  modification.* 

'  Loc.  cit.,  p.  i6i. 

«  This  does  not  imply  a  mechanical  superposition  ai  extra,  but  a  hastening  and 
guiding  of  individual  development  through  education. 

»  "  Non  seulement  ces  types  de  conduite  ou  de  pens6e  sont  ext^rieurs  4  I'indi- 
vidu,  mais  ils  sont  dou^s  d'une  puissance  imperative  et  coercitive  en  vertu  de 
laqutlle  ils  s'imposent  d  lui,  qu'il  le  veuille  ou  non."— E.  Durkheim:  Lts  regies 
de  la  methode  iociologique ,  p.  6. 

<  Lcwcs,  loc.  cit.,  p.  169. 

In  connection  with  this  thought  attention  should  be  called  to  Tarde's  ingenious 
theory  of  social  categories.  Just  as  certain  forms  of  thought  are  necessary  to 
classify,  organize,  and  unify  i)erceptions  in  individual  consciousness,  so  society 
can  be  formed  only  by  the  aid  of  similar  collective  reconciling  agencies  or 
categories.  "  II  y  a  done,  en  tout,  pour  I'esprit  individuel,  les  categories  sui- 
vantes,  logiques  et  tflfiologiques  :  la  MatiJre-Force,  I'Espace-Temps,  le  Plaisir  et 
la  Doulcur  :  et  pour  I'esprit  social ;  la  Divinity,  la  Langue,  le  Bien  et  le  Mai."— 
La  logique  sociale,  p.  92. 

»  The  formation  and  reaction  of  the  general  mind  have  been  admirably  de- 
scribetl  by  Lewes:  "Further,  the  experiences  of  each  individual  come  and  go. 
They  correct,  enlarge,  destroy  one  another,  leaving  behind  them  a  certain 
residual  store  which,  condensed  in  intuitions  and  formulated  in  principles,  direct 


The  Social  Miyid  and  Its  Development.  15 

The  social  mind  may  be  regarded  either  as  in  process  of 
change  or  as  in  temporary  equilibrium,  as  being  formed  or 
as  a  product.  Such  a  discrimination  is  of  course  purely 
arbitrary.  Yet  it  is  a  useful  devise  for  examination  and 
study.  At  any  given  moment  the  traditions  of  a  society, 
economic,  legal,  religious,  scientific,  artistic,  and  political, 
may  be  thought  of  as  social  products  forming  in  the 
aggregate  the  ' '  social  memory. ' ' '  Yet  these  products 
vary  greatly  in  definiteness  and  coherence.  A  part  are 
organized  and  unified  but  a  large  proportion  are  either 
discrete  and  isolated  or  in  actual  antagonism.  As  to  form, 
they  are  for  the  most  part  symbolized  in  written  or  printed 
language,  in  works  of  art,  in  technical  appliances,  yet,  as 
has  been  shown,  they  really  exist  only  in  individual  minds. 
Every  scientific  book  is,  on  the  one  hand,  the  product  of 
cooperation  by  many  individuals,  but,  on  the  other,  it 
represents  in  its  final  form  the  unified  consciousness  of 
one  man  which  may  be  reproduced  in  the  minds  of  many 
others  for  whom  the  symbols  have  a  definite  meaning.  ^ 

Again,  the  classes  of  products  are  not  common  to  the 
whole  society  but  are  apportioned  among  many  groups,  or 

and  modify  all  future  experiences.  The  sum  of  these  is  designated  as  the 
individual  mind.  A  similar  process  evolves  the  general  mind — the  residual 
Store  of  experiences,  common  to  all.  By  means  of  language,  the  individual 
shares  in  the  general  fund  which  thus  becomes  for  him  an  impersonal  ob- 
jective influence.  To  each  it  appeals.  We  all  assimilate  some  of  its  material 
and  help  to  increase  its  store.  Not  only  do  we  find  ourselves  confronting  nature 
to  whose  order  we  must  conform,  but  confronting  society  whose  law  we  must 
obey." — Problems  of  Life  and  Mind,  p.  i6i. 

1  G.  De  Greef :  Le  transformisme  social,  p.  9. 

"  Limitation  se  trouve  ainsi  correspondre  cxactement  d  la  m^moire  ;  elle  est  en 
efTet  la  mfimoire  sociale,  aussi  esseiilielle  d  tous  les  actes,  aussi  ntcessaire  d  tous 
les  instants  de  la  vie  de  soci6t6,  que  la  mfimoire  est  constamment  et  essenticllement 
en  fonction  dans  le  cerveau."— Tarde:  loc.  cit.,  p.  123.  Tarde  greatly  extends  the 
term  "imitation."  Traditions  that  are  widely  accepted  are  "  imitated."  Means 
of  communication  are  "  facilit^s  d'imitation." 

2  A  compilation  or  "  undigested  "  mass  of  many  individual  ideas  is  a  purely 
mechanical  social  product  without  real  unity,  which  is  secured  only  by  the  fusion 
of  the  materials  in  one  mind. 


1 6  The  Social  Mi?id  and  Education. 


at  most  these  traditions  are  present  in  different  minds  in 
widely  varying  degrees  of  definitencss  and  clearness.  The 
legal  tradition  enters  the  minds  of  the  vast  majority  of 
citizens  in  a  vague  way  at  best.  It  is  clearly  conscious  in 
the  thought  of  a  special  class  only,  which,  however,  may 
be  regarded  as  the  social  organ  of  that  particular  function 
of  the  collective  mind.'  In  a  like  manner  all  the  tra- 
ditions of  society  are  not  merely  symbolized  but  are  in 
actual  existence,  forming  in  large  measure  the  memories  of 
individuals.  Thus  at  any  time  they  may  be  called  into 
active  consciousness  to  assimilate  the  new  elements  which 
are  constantly  received  by  the  general  mind.*  A  dis- 
covery need  not  remain  an  isolated  phenomenon  until 
libraries  have  been  ransacked  to  consult  the  social  memory. 
The  sifted  experiences  and  conclusions  of  the  race  are 
active  in  the  consciousness  of  many  individuals  who 
quickly  combine  in  the  unity  of  their  own  thoughts  the 
new  with  the  old  and  thus  enrich  the  tradition  and  modify 
the  collective  memory. 

Insensibly  our  thought  has  been  carried  over  from  the 
static  to  the  dynamic  point  of  view.  The  very  difificulty  of 
isolating  the  forms  of  treatment  is  significant  of  the 
reality.  As  human  consciousness  is  a  ceaselessly  changing 
stream '  so  the  social  mind  undergoes  constant  modifica- 
tion. Individual  thoughts  and  feelings  are,  on  the  one 
hand,  largely  social  products,  yet,  on  the  other,  they  offer 
new  elements  which  are  gathered  up  and  integrated  with 
the  various  traditions  of  the  social  mind. 

This  process  may  be  temporary,  as  in  the  case  of  mobs 

1  De  Greef :  loc.  cit.,  p.  5. 

L.  F.  Ward  :   The  Psychic  Factors  of  Civilization,  pp.  297-298. 

«  "  Each  novel  impression  has  to  be  assimilated  by  the  existing  mass  of 
residual  impressions  ;  each  new  conclusion  has  to  be  affiliated  on  the  old,  dove- 
Uilcd  into  the  rest."— Lewes :  loc.  cit.,  p.  166. 

•  James:  loc.  cit..  Vol.  I.,  pp.  237-239. 


The  Social  Mi?id  and  Its  Development.  17 

or  crowds,'  or  it  may  take  on  a  more  orderly,  definite, 
and  permanent  character.  Since  this  essay  is  to  deal 
chiefly  with  the  cognitive  function  of  both  the  individual 
and  the  social  mind,  attention  will  be  directed  to  those 
phenomena  which  display  more  or  less  systematic  proc- 
esses of  organization.* 

The  social  mind,  made  possible  by  devices  for  the 
symbolizing  and  communicating  of  thought,  attains  coordi- 
nation and  power  in  direct  proportion  to  the  organiza- 
tion of  this  mechanism.  That  society  in  which  individuals 
are  careful  observ^ers,  accurate  reporters,  and  in  which  the 
means  exist  for  gathering  up  these  observations,  organizing 
them  with  the  traditions  of  the  past,  and  distributing  the 
results  widely,  will,  other  things  being  equal,  develop  its 
collective  knowledge  to  a  high  degree  of  efficiency.  This 
is  in  general  the  process  which  is  going  on  constantly  in 
society.  The  absolutely  essential  importance  of  organized 
communication  is  obvious.  Division  of  intellectual  labor  is 
as  dependent  upon  communication  as  the  specialization  of 
industry  upon  a  system  of  transportation.^ 

A  broad  assertion  like  the  above  may  mislead  by  its 
systematic  form.  Falckenberg  has  wisely  observed  :  "  .  . 
If  we  may  judge  from  the  experience  of  the  past,  too  much 
caution  cannot  be  exercised  in  setting  up  formal  laws  for 
the  development  of  thought.""  Equal  care  should  be 
observed  in  irtaking  general  and  simplified  statements 
about  complex  phenomena.      The  social  mind  is  not  modi- 

•  Le  Bon  :  Psychologie  des  fouhs,  pp.  12-16. 

s  It  is  very  important  to  realize  how  greatly  this  restriction  of  the  discussion 
narrows  the  field  of  inquiry.  Social  standards  of  taste  and  conduct,  the  phe- 
nomena of  imitation  atid  authority,  the  question  of  the  collective  will,  etc.,  must 
be  almost  wholly  neglected. 

3  The  invention  of  printing  was,  in  this  view,  the  setting  up  of  a  communicating 
apparatus  by  means  of  which  the  area  of  social  consciousness  might  be  greatly 
increased  and  made  the  basis  for  the  later  emergence  of  social  self-consciousness. 

*  Falckenberg  :  loc.  cit..  p.  6. 


l8  The  Social  Mind  arid  Educatioji. 

ficd  in  so  methodic,  orderly,  and  mechanical  a  manner  as 
this  description  would  seem  to  imply.  The  process  is  one 
of  gradual  growth.  Conflicting  feelings  and  theories 
coexist  and  struggle  for  mastery.  The  integration  is 
never  complete.  To  quote  once  more  from  Lewes  :  "In 
the  great  total  of  collective  experience,  as  in  that  of  the 
individual,  absurd  perversions  and  wild  fancies  take  their 
place  beside  exact  correspondences  of  feeling  and  fact, 
anil  truths  that  are  unshakable  ;  it  is  a  shifting  mass  of 
truth  and  error  forever  becoming  more  and  more  sifted 
and  organized  into  permanent  structures  of  germinating 
fertility  or  of  fossilized  barrenness.'"  Yet  beneath  these 
surface  phenomena  of  conflict  and  confusion,  it  is  possible 
to  discover  broad  general  tendencies  of  a  more  orderly 
nature.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  social  tradition  is 
not  transmitted  in  a  single,  compact,  coherent  body,  but 
divides  rather  into  a  large  number  of  minor  traditions, 
each  of  which  finds  clear  expression  in  the  consciousness  of 
a  more  or  less  restricted  group  of  men.  This  is  not  to  say 
that  much  of  the  tradition  does  not  in  a  vague  way  enter 
the  minds  of  large  numbers  in  society,  or  to  deny  that  in 
rare  cases  the  whole  stream  of  social  consciousness,  in  a 
generalized  form  of  course,  may  flow  through  single  minds. 
This  splitting  up  of  the  social  memory  suggests  the  ques- 
tion as  to  how  far  and  in  what  sense  society  may  attain 
self-consciousness.  If  the  accumulations  of  experience  are 
divided  among  social  groups,  must  not  consciousness  and 
self-consciousness,  which  depend  upon  memory',  be  equally 
fragmcntar>'  ? 

A  distinction  must  be  made  at  the  outset  between  in- 
dividual and  social  consciousness.  Each  member  of 
society  may  be  conscious  of  his  own  thoughts  and  feelings, 
but  it  is  only  when  these  thoughts  and  feelings  are  common 

'  Lot.  cit.,  p.  166. 


The  Social  Mind  and  lis  Development.  19 

to  a  whole  group  that  social  consciousness  appears.  Social 
consciousness  is  directly  dependent  upon  the  communi- 
cating structure  and  upon  the  intrinsic  nature  of  the 
thought  to  be  communicated,  i.  <?. ,  a  fact  will  penetrate 
the  social  consciousness  with  a  promptness  proportioned  to 
the  facilities  for  transmission  and  to  a  degree  dependent 
upon  the  generality  of  the  interest  to  which  it  appeals.' 
Again,  society  may  be  described  as  self-conscious  when, 
in  addition  to  a  community  of  thought  and  feeling,  each 
individual  realizes  the  significance  of  his  own  ideas  and 
acts  in  relation  to  the  aggregate  of  activities,  and  shapes 
his  conduct  in  conformity  with  such  knowledge  or  adopts 
general  principles  of  procedure  determined  by  collective  de- 
liberation. ■'     Social  self-consciousness  thus  develops  out  of 

1  De  Greef  has  worked  out  an  elaborate  analog>'  between  the  facts  of  indi- 
vidual and  collective  consciousness.  He  attempts  to  show  a  parallel  between  the 
progressive  organization  of  the  physical  nervous  system  and  the  social  organs  of 
psychical  communication  and  regulation. — Introduction  a  la  sociologie  (znie 
Partie),  Chap.  XIII. 

2  Giddings  thus  characterizes  social  self-consciousness  :  "  In  a  true  social  self- 
consciousness,  which  must  be  described  rather  than  defined,  the  distinctive 
peculiarity  is,  that  each  individual  makes  his  neighbor's  feeling  or  judgment  an 
object  of  thought,  at  the  same  instant  that  he  makes  his  own  feeling  or  thought 
such  an  object ;  that  he  judges  the  two  to  be  identical,  and  then  he  acts  with  a  full 
consciousness  that  his  fellows  have  come  to  like  conclusions,  and  will  act  in  like 
ways." — Principles  of  Sociology ,  p.  137.  This  statement  alone,  perhaps  from  the 
nature  of  the  phenomenon  described,  is  somewhat  disappointing  in  its  vagueness. 
In  order  to  genuine  social  self-consciousness  there  should  be  a  knowledge  in  each 
individual  mind  of  the  aggregate  or  totality  of  individual  activities  in  their 
relations,  that  which  Giddings  later  describes  as  "asocial  perception."  Through- 
out this  discussion  the  term  self-consciousness  is  used  in  general  to  connote 
definiteness  of  purpose,  e.g.,  society  acts  in  a  self-conscious  way  when  individuals 
conduct  themselves  in  harmony  with  some  common  plan  of  procedure  which  has 
a  fixed  end  in  view.  Cf.  L.  F.  Ward  :  Dynamic  Sociology,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  249,  250, 
and  Fouill^e:  loc.  cil.,  pp.  235-246. 

Tarde  has  admirably  described  the  formation  of  social  consciousness  from  the 
products  of  individual  consciousness:  "Tout,  dans  la  creation  d'urie  ccuvre 
sociale  quelconque,  simple  ou  composfie,  n'est  qu'acte  de  conscience,  et,  le  plus 
souvent  meme,  de  reflexion  et  d'efTort;  mais,  St  I'origine,  une  invention  [idea, 
theory,  piece  of  literature  as  well  as  a  machine]  s'engendre  lentement  par  la 
collaboration  aecidentelle  ou  naturelle  de  beaucoup  de  consciences  en  mouvement, 
cherchant  chacune  de  son  cot6,  apportant  chacune  son  petit  brin  de  paille  ou 
d'herbe  au  nid  commun  ;  puis  un  moment  arrive  souvent  oii  cc  travail  tout  entier 


20  The  Social  Mind  and  liducalion. 


social  consciousness.  Obviously,  definite  social  self- 
consciousness  is  possible  only  in  advanced  societies  in 
which  the  means  exist  for  making  accurate  observations, 
ori^anizinij  them  carefully,  and  distributing^  them  widely, 
and  in  which  on  the  basis  of  such  knowledge  there 
are  institutions  for  deliberation,  decision,  and  execution. 
Social  self-consciousness  is  a  characteristic  of  social  ma- 
turity, and  the  correlative  of  social  purpose. ' 

Once  more  it  is  necessary  to  guard  a  general  statement. 
The  phenomena  of  social  self-consciousness  are  clearly 
marked  in  connection  with  the  activities  of  governments, 
but  they  are  not  so  easily  distinguished  in  the  innumer- 
able less  formal  and  orderly  procedures  of  the  social  mind. 
But  even  in  governments  it  is  obvious  that  except  in  rare 
cases  and  in  a  most  general  way,  social  self-consciousness 
is  really  confined  to  comparatively  small  groups  which 
examine  the  data  available,  see  the  relations  involved, 
reach  decisions,  and  carry  out  policies.  Democracies 
differ  from  autocracies  in  the  area  of  self-consciousness, 
which  in  the  former  case  might  ideally  extend  to  every 
mature  mind,  in  the  latter  be  confined  to  a  small  cabinet.* 

Thus  the  social  tradition  does  not  grow  as  a  result  of  the 

commence  ct  se  termine  dans  un  mfime  esprit,  d'ou  un  invention  parfait  en 
naissant,  telle  que  le  tfelfiphone,  comme  I'a  remarqu6  Reuleaux  4  propos  des 
machines,  jaillit  un  jour  ex  abrupto.  Ce  moment  n'arrive  pas  toujours,  mais 
toujours  on  y  tend.  Autrement  dit,  tout  s'op^re  primitivement  par  multi-conscience 
et  s'op^re  en  suit  ou  tend  i  s'op^rer  par  uni-coHscience."—La  log-ique  sociaU, 

p.  201. 

Tarde  further  illustrates  his  point  by  asserting  that  the  vani-ing  usage  ofdifferent 
authors  produces  a  "  pluri-conscious"  spelling,  but  when  an  academy  fixes  the 
usage  it  becomes  "  uni-conscious."  Ibid.,  p.  202.  The  social  function  of  ^/ojV* 
(fame,  notoriety,  novelty,  celebrity)  is,  in  Tarde's  view,  to  enable  inventions  to 
penetrate  the  social  consciousness.     Ibid.,  p.  121. 

•  L.  F.  Ward  :  "Sociolog>-  and  Biolog>-,"  Am.  Jour,  of  Sociology,  Nov.,  1895. 

»  It  is  in  connection  with  the  state  that  the  idea  of  the  self-conscious  individu- 
ality of  society  has  been  chiefly  insisted  upon.  The  following  is  typical  of  a 
certain  class  of  thinkers  :  "  C'est  le  '  moi  public  '  ou  6tat  qui  est  le  cer\eau  da 
corps  politique,  comme  le  cer\eau  est  Vfetat  du  corps  physique."— Jean  Izoulet: 
La  citf  modeme,  p.  353. 


The  Social  Mind  and  Its  Developme7ii.  21 

self-conscious  activity  of  society  as  a  whole.  While  from 
time  to  time  new  observations  and  discoveries  may  pene- 
trate the  social  consciousness,  they  are  put  in  their  rela- 
tions and  organized  into  the  social  memory  by  the 
purposeful  efforts  of  small  groups  to  which,  in  the  de- 
velopment of  collective  thought,  certain  portions  of  the 
social  tradition  have  been  intrusted.'  These  groups 
represent  the  self-consciousness  of  society  in  a  less  definite 
and  precise  but  essentially  the  same  way  as  do  legislatures 
and  cabinets.' 

To  confioe  attention  to  those  groups  which  are  directly 
concerned  in  the  organization  of  social  knowledge,  it  is 
obvious  that  they  are  self-conscious  in  the  sense  that  each 
individual  is  in  communication  with  every  other  and  knows 
that  his  own  theories,  experiments,  and  researches  are 
related  to  the  activities  of  the  rest.  He  adopts  a  plan 
of   work    adjusted    in    the   main   to   the   pursuits    of    his 

1  The  recent  discovery  of  Professer  Rontgen  is  a  case  in  point.  By  means  of 
the  press  the  main  facts  quickly  entered  the  social  mind,  i.  e.,  the  same  general 
state  of  consciousness  was  common  to  almost  all  individuals  of  intelligence.  The 
discovery  is  the  object  of  a  social  self-consciousness  confined  to  a  comparatively 
small  group  of  specialists  who  aim  to  relate  the  new  fact  definitely  to  other 
observed  phenomena  and  systematically  to  carrj'  on  further  investigations. 

4  SchafBe  has  worked  out  an  elaborate  social  psychology  in  which  he  discusses 
the  general  consciousness  (allgemeine  Bewusstsein)  and  social  self-consciousness 
(Selbstbewusstsein).  He  employs  the  theor>-  of  the  threshold  of  consciousness  in 
an  ingenious  way.  "  Nicht  jede  Idee  tritt  ins  allgemeine  Bewusstsein,  d.  h.  ins 
Bewusstsein  der  centralen  Collectivorgane  oder  gar  in  das  Bewusstsein  aller 
Individuen.  Nur  ein  sehr  kleiner  Theil  aller  geistigen  Ereignisse  des  socialen 
Lebens  wird  den  Centralorganen  bewusst." — Sau  und  Leben  des  socialen  Kbrpers, 
I.  Auf ,  Bd.  I.,  S.  403.  By  the  economy  of  this  arrangement  the  central  organs  of 
government  are  spared  the  distraction  of  considering  many  details  which  do  not 
get  above  the  threshold  (Schwelle).  As  to  social  self-consciousness  Schaffle 
makes  an  important  discrimination:  "Ein  '  vollkommencs  Sclbstbewusstsein,' 
welches  alle  neben  und  nach  einaiider  vorkommcnden  geistigen  Ereignisse  des 
socialen  Korpers  vollkommen  einheillich,  dcm  Inhalt  und  der  Zcilfolge  nach,  in 
sich  zusammensasste,  ist  auch  in  socialen  Korper  nicht  wahrzunehmen."— y&i'rf., 
S.  408.  The  psychical  labor  is  divided  among  groups  so  that  social  self- 
consciousness  is  distributed  rather  than  concentrated.  Only  in  governmental 
activities  is  there  an  approach  to  genuine  collective  self-consciousness,  but  even 
there  only  a  small  portion  of  the  social  life  is  concerned. 


22  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 


fellow-students  and  aims  at  a  more  or  less  definite  co- 
operation with  tiiem  to  attain  a  certain  end.  At  the  same 
time  the  contents  of  the  social  memory,  so  far  as  they 
relate  to  his  special  task,  are  in  his  consciousness  and  are 
unclcri;()iiij^  constant  revision  and  modification  as  new 
truth  comes  to  light.' 

In  marked  contrast  with  this  procedure  are  the  processes 
of  the  savage  mind.  The  primitive  group  in  its  organi- 
zation for  war  may  display  an  incipient  self-consciousness, 
but  in  the  rationalizing  of  daily  experiences  there  is  com- 
plete unconsciousness.  The  social  tradition  is  homo- 
geneous or  shows  only  the  beginnings  of  differentiation. 
Each  experience  is  explained  and  adjusted  not  to  others  of 
a  similar  nature  but  to  the  needs  of  the  moment^ — for 
even  the  primitive  mind  demands  subjective  unity.  There 
may  be  social  consciousness  in  a  savage  tribe,  but  social 
self-consciousness  emerges  only  as  the  group  begins  to 
specialize  its  tradition  and  organize  its  psychical  labor, 
setting  up  the  communicating  apparatus  which  these  proc- 
esses involve. 

In  a  broad  sense  it  may  be  said  that  social  knowledge 
advances  from  a  homogeneous  and  empirical  to  a  highly 

1  The  importance  of  bibliographies  is  emphasized  in  this  view.  Just  in  so  far  as 
a  scientist  isolates  himself  from  his  fellow-workers  and  fails  to  keep  himself 
informed  as  to  their  achievements,  he  withdraws  himself  from  the  self-conscious 
social  mind,  thereby  either  impairing  his  own  work  or  wasting  his  time  and 
enerK>'  in  useless  duplications. 

The  attempt  of  German  anatomists  to  devise  a  systematic  nomenclature  is  an 
admirable  illustration  of  self-conscious  cooperation.  It  is  proposed  to  substitute 
about  5,000  terms  rationally  constructed  and  related,  for  the  old  terminologj-  of 
more  than  3o,ooo  names  vaguely  conceived  and  variously  employed  in  different 
works.  This  is  a  step  from  unconsciousness  to  self-consciousness,  from  hap- 
hazard growth  to  purposeful  construction. 

»  "  Les  soci6t6s  primitives  n'ont  pas  de  conception  physique  ou  sociale  du 
monde  :  elles  vivent  au  jour  le  jour,  ob^issant  principalement  aux  conditions  les 
plus  g6n6rales  de  leurs  milieux,  a  leur  besoins  et  leur  instincts  guerriers  6cono- 
miques  et  g£n6siques,  Icsquels  sont,  de  tous  leurs  besoins,  les  plus  simples,  les 
moins  <lev(s  et  les  plus  irrfsistibles." — De  Greef:  L' evolutioti  des  croyances  et 
des  doctrines  poUtiques,  p.  27. 


The  Social  Mind  and  Its  Development.  23 

differentiated  and  rationalized  tradition,  and  that  the  pro- 
cedure, characterized  in  its  early  stages  by  social  un- 
consciousness, tends  constantly  to  become  increasingly 
purposeful. ' 

Yet  this  description  is  partial  and  needs  a  comple- 
mentary statement.  If  this  were  the  whole  truth  the  term 
social  memory  or  tradition  would  be  inapplicable.  There 
would  be  merely  social  memories  and  traditions.  But  as 
has  been  hinted,  the  stream  of  social  consciousness  does 
not  flow  always  in  clearly  defined  and  separate  channels,  it 
is  constantly  dividing  and  combining  in  the  minds  of  men. 
To  change  the  figure,  the  social  tradition  has  grown  out  of 
the  life  experiences  of  the  race.  Each  new  appearance 
had  to  be  explained  and  fitted  with  the  old  and  familiar  so 
that  things  might  hang  together  and  satisfy  the  otherwise 
distracted  mind.^  Thus,  from  the  very  beginning,  social 
tradition,  a  product  of  a  unified  life,  had  a  certain  unity  in 
itself.  Many  of  its  elements  grouped  themselves  into 
nuclei  of  facts  in  relations  of  obvious  causality,  but  there 
were  wide  gaps  which  had  to  be  filled  with  animistic  and 
volitional  agencies.  Yet  in  some  fashion  the  daily  life  was 
pieced  together  and  the  tradition  which  grew  out  of  it 
gained  coherence. 

1  Durkheim  has  described  the  gradual  progress  of  the  collective  mind  from  the 
concrete  to  the  abstract  which  is  closely  related  to  the  advance  from  social 
unconsciousness  to  self-consciousness.  In  a  small  society  where  all  individuals 
have  the  same  environment  the  common  consciousness  has  a  concrete  character, 
but  in  larger  groups,  extending  over  a  broader  and  more  varied  area,  the  col- 
lective conceptions  become  abstract. — De  la  division  du  travail  social,  p.  318. 
Durkheim  also  points  out  that  the  sciences  developed  from  the  arts,  from  the 
problems  of  daily  life  which  were  first  practically  solved  and  afterward  rationally 
explained.— Z.<?i  regies  de  la  methode  sociologique ,  p.  23. 

a  "  Pour  sentir  combien  ce  besoin  est  profond  et  impferieux,  il  suffit  de  penser  un 
instant  aux  effets  physiologiques  de  1'  Honnement,  et  de  consid6rer  que  la  sensa- 
tion la  plus  terrible  que  nous  puissons  6prouver  est  celle  qui  se  produit  toutes  les 
fois  qu'un  ph6nom$ne  nous  semble  s'accomplir  contradictoirement  aux  lois 
naturelles  qui  nous  sont  familiires." — August  Comte  :  Cours  de  philosophie  post' 
live.  Tome  I.,  p.  52. 


24  The  Social  Mind  arid  Education. 


The  same  objective  and  subjective  factors  have  been  at 
work  throughout  the  whole  process  of  social  evolution. 
Social  life  with  all  its  increasing  complexity  has  never  lost 
its  unity,  and  the  human  mind,  bewildering  as  has  been  the 
increase  of  knowledge,  has  never  ceased  its  efforts  to  "see 
things  together." 

Social  knowledge,  therefore,  has  grown  not  only  by 
division  but  by  combination.  As  Spencer  has  so  clearly 
pointed  out :  "There  has  all  along  been  higher  specializa- 
tion, that  there  might  be  a  larger  generalization  ;  and  a 
deeper  analysis  that  there  might  be  a  better  synthesis. 
Each  larger  generalization  has  lifted  sundry  specializations 
still  higher,  and  each  better  synthesis  has  prepared  the 
way  for  still  deeper  analysis.'"  Emerging  social  self- 
consciousness  has  been  directed  not  only  to  the  division  of 
the  social  tradition  and  the  elaboration  of  its  parts  but 
also  to  the  recombination  of  them  into  a  higher  unity. 

Up  to  this  point,  general  statement  has  been  employed, 
for  the  sake  of  presenting  the  facts  as  clearly  as  possible 
and  to  avoid  the  confusion  which  might  be  involved  in 
the  premature  use  of  special  terms.  It  now  remains  to 
inquire  how  this  view  of  the  social  mind  may  be  stated  in 
terms  of  the  familiar  intellectual  tasks  of  men. 

Common  or  empirical  knowledge  forms  a  part  of  the 
social  tradition  and  enters  social  consciousness,  but  is  not  a 
product  of  social  self-consciousness.  ' '  We  break  the  solid 
plenitude  of  fact,"  says  James,  "into  separate  essences, 
conceive  generally  what  only  exists  particularly,  and  by 
our  classifications,  leave  nothing  in  its  natural  neighbor- 
hood, but  separate  the  contiguous  and  join  what  the 
poles  divorce."*  Such  classification  and  rationalizing, 
purposeful  efforts  to  reduce  the  world  of  phenomena  to 

1  Eszays:  Scientific,  Political,  and  Sp f dilative.  Vol.  II.,  p.  29. 
•  Psychology.  Vol.  II.,  p.  634. 


The  Social  Mind  ayid  Its  Development.  25 

order  and  system  produce  sciences.  Common  knowledge 
is  ' '  untested  and  unanalyzed  consciousness, ' '  while  science 
is  knowledge  ' '  in  its  completest  and  purest  form. ' ' '  The 
self-conscious  element  of  the  social  memory,  therefore, 
contains  the  sciences.  From  this  point  of  view  the  prog- 
ress of  the  sciences  is  the  extension  of  the  area  of  self- 
consciousness  in  the  social  tradition.  Common  knowledge, 
originally  chaotic  and  haphazard,  is  gradually  ordered, 
organized,  and  brought  under  the  reign  of  law.* 

The  methodical  organization  and  enrichment  of  the 
social  tradition  have  been  achieved  by  division  of  labor 
which  has  become  increasingly  minute.  "Nous  sommes 
loin  du  temps,"  says  Durkheim,  "ou  la  philosophic  etait 
la  science  unique ;  elle  est  fragmentee  en  un  multitude  de 
disciplines  speciales  dont  chacune  a  son  objet,  sa  methode, 
son  esprit."^  He  quotes  also  a  passage  from  De  Can- 
dolle,^  who  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  the  epoch  of 
Leibnitz  and  Newton  the  savant  had  two  or  three  designa- 
tions, such  as  mathematician,  astronomer,  and  physician. 
By  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  several  titles  were 
still  necessary  to  indicate  the  achievements,  in  more  than 
one  of  the  sciences  and  departments  of  letters,  of  men  like 
Wolff,  Haller,  and  Charles  Bonnet.  In  the  nineteenth 
century  this  difficulty  of  description  no  longer  remains, 
or  at  least  is  very  rare.  Candolle  predicts  that  the 
dual   profession  of  investigator  and   teacher  will  soon  be 

1  Flint  :  "  Philosophy  as  a  Scientia  Scientiarum,"  Princeton  Review,  November. 
1878. 

* "  La  succession  des  €tats  de  conscience  primitivement,  d6sordonn6e  et 
fortuite,  s'organise  peu  il  peu  par  I'aclivitfi  de  I'esprit.  Elle  ne  devient  intelli- 
gible pour  lui  que  parce  qu'il  y  met  un  ordrc;  et  par  I'id^e  d'ordre  on  arrive 
ainsi  a  r  id€e  de  loi."  Quoted  from  a  review  of  Andre  Lalande's  Lectures  sur 
la  philosophie  des  sciences,  by  Charles  Andler  in  La  revue  philosophiquc.  Tome 
XIX.,  p.  329. 

8  De  la  division  du  travail  social,  p.  2. 

4  Histoire  des  sciences  et  des  savants,  2me  Edition,  p.  263. 


26  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

definitely  differentiated.  Comte  commented  emphatically 
upon  the  increasing"  specialization  of  his  day,  and  sounded 
a  note  of  warning  which  is  still  reechoing  in  popular 
phrases. ' 

In  terms  of  the  social  mind  such  specialization  has  been 
shown  to  be  a  dividing  up  of  the  social  self-consciousness 
and  the  formation  of  groups  to  each  of  which  a  certain 
class  of  phenomena  is  intrusted.  Each  science,  therefore, 
"est  le  fruit  d'une  collaboration  s6culaire  entre  des  genera- 
tions de  savants."*  The  advance  of  each  science  displays 
the  processes  of  analysis  and  synthesis,  the  examination  of 
details,  and  the  recombination  into  a  whole,  a  movement 
of  which  Froebel  wrote  :  "I  find  in  pure  thought  the  type 
and  law  of  all  development. ' '  ^ 

The  same  movement  which  within  the  social  mind  sub- 
divides the  collective  tradition  into  sciences  and  arts, 
characterizes  also  the  development  of  these  special  ele- 
ments. "Division,  analysis,"  declares  Flint,  "is  a  neces- 
sary and  inevitable  condition  of  progress  both  in  life  and 
science.  Every  stage  of  progress  must  be  consequent  on 
a  stage  of  division,  spontaneous  or  reflective,  industrial  or 
scientific."* 

But  division  and  analysis  are  only  half  the  process. 
Combination,  synthesis,  render  a  complementary-  service. 
Just  as  each  science  is  organized  into  coherence,  so  all  the 
elements  of  the  social  tradition  are  constantly  tending 
toward  integration  in  philosophy. 

The  history  of  philosophy  has  been  described  by  Falck- 
enberg   as    "the  philosophy  of   humanity,   that   great  in- 

•  Iaic.  cil.,  Tome  I.,  p.  23. 

•  Tarde  :  La  logique  sociale,  p.  214. 

•  Quoted  by   Miss   Blow  in  Symbolic  Education  from  a  letter  of   Froebel  to 
Krause. 

«  Robert  Flint :  loc.  cit. 


The  Social  Mind  and  Its  Development.  27 

dividual  which  .  .  .  approaches  by  a  necessary  and 
certain  growth  of  knowledge  the  one  all-embracing  truth 
which  is  rich  and  varied  beyond  our  conception.'"  As 
we  have  seen,  humanity  from  the  beginning  has  sought 
to  unify  its  experiences,  to  explain  all  phenomena.  This 
constant  effort  resulted  at  first  in  socially  unconscious  ex- 
planations which  postulated  the  active  agency  of  super- 
natural beings,  and  gradually  with  the  increase  of  empirical 
or  common-knowledge  attributed  all  that  happened  to  the 
power  of  a  single  God.  This  is  the  well-known  theological 
stage  of  Comte's  Philosophie  Positive."^  It  is  impossible 
to  mark  off  into  definite  stages  the  progress  of  collective 
thought.  Only  the  tendency  can  be  characterized.  Fiske 
has  described  the  movement  implied  in  Comte's  theory 
as  progress  from  the  more  to  the  less  anthropomorphic,^ 
and  Spencer  has  shown  that  in  essential  nature  there  is 
no  difference  between  the  theological,  metaphysical,  and 
positive  stages,  that  all  alike  involve  "the  postulating 
of  some  external  existence,  and  the  postulating  of  this 
ultimate  existence  involves  a  state  of  consciousness  (in 
positive  philosophizing)  indistinguishable  from  the  other 
two."^ 

The  movement  may  also  be  described  as  progress  from 
social   unconsciousness   to  social   self-consciousness,    from 

1  Loc.  cit.,  p.  2. 

8  "  En  d'autres  termes,  I'esprit  humain,  par  sa  nature,  emploie  successivemeiit 
dans  chacune  de  ses  recherches  trois  m^thodes  de  philosopher,  dont  le  car- 
act^re  est  essentiellement  diff6rent  et  miSme  radicalement  opposC-  :  d'abord  la 
m^thode  th^ologique,  en  suite  la  mSthode  mfitaphysique,  et  enfin  la  m^thode 
positive." — Loc.  cit.,  Tome  I.,  p.  3. 

3  "  There  are  not  three  successive  or  superposed  processes.  There  is  one  con- 
tinuous process  which  (if  I  may  be  allowed  to  invent  a  rather  formidable  word  in 
imitation  of  Coleridge)  is  best  described  as  a  continuous  process  of  dtanthropo- 
morphization  or  the  stripping  off  of  the  anthropomorphic  attributes  with  which 
primeval  philosophy  clothed  the  unknown  power  which  is  manifested  in  phe- 
nomena."— Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy,  \'ol.  I.,  pp.  175-176. 

<  Essays :  "  Reasons  for  Dissenting  from  the  Philosophy  of  M.  Comle,"  Vol.  U., 
p.  127. 


28  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 


spontaneous,  unreflective  explanations  to  ordered,  system- 
atic, and  purposeful  investigation  and  conclusion.  Be- 
tween these  extremes  there  are  many  grades  of  partial 
self-consciousness  that  correspond  in  general  to  Comte's 
metaphysical  stage  which  he  himself  conceived  and  de- 
scribed as  a  transition  from  the  first  to  the  third  rather 
than  as  a  clearly  differentiated  period.' 

The  familiar  "law  of  the  three  stages,"  therefore,  maybe 
restated  more  exactly  in  terms  of  social  self-consciousness. 
Each  science  passes  gradually  from  unconscious  empiri- 
cism to  socially  self-conscious  or  reflective  organization 
and  interpretation,  just  as  philosophy  in  its  attempt  to 
interrelate  and  unify  the  sciences  advances  from  more  or 
less  instinctive  explanations  to  definitely  planned  and 
systematic  efforts  to  construct  a  rational  conception  of  the 
whole.  Again,  the  order  in  which  the  sciences  become 
the  objects  of  the  reflective  social  mind  clearly  depends 
upon  more  factors  than  Comte  has  indicated.  °  The  var^-- 
ing  simplicity  and  consequent  progressive  dependence  of 
the  phenomena  themselves  constitute  only  one  of  the 
causes  which  determine  their  relative  rates  of  advance  into 
social  self-consciousness.  Phenomena  become  the  objects 
of  reflective  explanation  not  merely  in  the  order  of  their 

1  "  La  premiere  est  le  point  de  depart  nfecessaire  de  rintelligence  humaine;  la 
troisi^me,  son  6tat  fixe  et  dfefinitif ;  la  seconde  est  uniquement  destinfee  i  servir  de 
transition." — Loc.  cit..  Tome  I.,  p.  3. 

«  Comte's  principle  of  decreasing  generality  and  cumulative  dependence  in 
the  classification  of  the  sciences  was  also  made  to  serve  as  an  explanation  of  the 
order  in  which  the  sciences  have  advanced  through  the  "  three  stages."  The 
well-known  heirarchy  is  mathematics,  astronomy,  physics,  chemistry,  biology 
(including  transcendental  biology — an  abortive  psychology),  and  social  physics, 
or  sociology.  It  should  be  said  in  justice  to  Comte  that  he  himself  recognized 
and  admitted  that  the  development  and  sequence  was  by  no  means  rigidly  linear. 
"  On  voit,  en  effet,  que,  quelque  parfaite  qu'on  pflt  la  supposer,  cette  classification 
ne  saurait  jamais  fitre  rigoureusement  conforme  d  I'enchatnement  historique  des 
sciences.  Quoi  qu'on  fassc,  on  ne  peut  6viter  entiSrement  de  presenter  comme 
antericure  telle  science  qui  aura  cependant  besoin,  sous  quelques  rapports  par- 
ticuliers  plus  ou  moins  important,  d' emprunter  des  notions  d  une  autre  science 
class^e  dans  un  rang  postferieur.— /.<?<-.  cit..  Tome  I.,  p.  68. 


The  Social  Mind  and  Its  Development.  29 

simplicity,  but  in  proportion  as  they  are  {a)  conspicuous 
or  obtrusive,  forcing  themselves  on  the  attention  of  men, 
(<5)  frequent,  demanding  theories  by  their  very  iteration, 
(r)  concrete,  seeking  solution  in  definite  tangible  forms 
rather  than  in  abstract  relations,  and  (</)  accessible  or 
controllable  within  the  natural  or  artificial  range  of  human 
examination  and  analysis. ' 

Manifestly  when  all  these  influences  are  taken  into  the 
account  the  linear  nature  of  Comte's  law,  based  upon  only 
one,  must  be  greatly  modified.  The  traditions  of  the 
social  mind  advance  together  in  relations  of  mutual  inter- 
dependence, the  simplest  aiding  the  more  complex,  while 
the  latter  often  react  in  a  most  important  way  upon  the 
former.  In  recognizing  this  organic  growth  of  the  social 
memory,  it  is  unnecessary  to  go  with  Spencer  to  the 
extreme  of  wholly  denying  the  existence  of  any  order  of 
progress  based  on  the  natural  dependence  of  phenomena 
themselves.  Even  when  Comte's  rigid  statement  has 
been  duly  modified  to  include  the  other  factors  that  have 
just  been  indicated,  there  remains  the  fact  of  objective 
dependence  which  cannot  be  ignored.  ' '  So  far  from 
having  succeeded  in  overthrowing  that  scheme  [Comte's 
hierarchy  of  the  sciences],"  says  Flint,  "he  [Spencer]  has 
only  succeeded  in  modifying  it.  There  is  a  logical  de- 
pendence of  the  sciences.  And  why  ?  Just  because  there 
is  a  natural  dependence  of  phenomena.  .  .  .  There 
being  such  a  hierarchy  of  phenomena,  it  is  scarcely  con- 
ceivable that  there  should  be  no  corresponding  hierarchy 
of  sciences."* 

A  clear  distinction  should  be  made  at  this  point  between 
the  historical  order,  in  which  certain  bodies  of  knowledge 

1  Fiske  :  loc.  cit..  Vol.  I.,  pp.  208-211. 

*  "  The  Classification    of  tlie    Sciences,"  Prrsbytfrian   Review,  ]\x\\,   1886,  p. 
523- 


30  The  Social  Mind  atid  Education. 

have  emerged  into  social  self-consciousness,  and  the  sys- 
tematic, reflective  arrangement  of  these  sciences  in  a 
scheme  or  classification  designed  to  display  their  relations. 
Spencer'  in  demonstrating  the  inadequacy  of  Comte's 
historical  argument  seems  to  ignore  this  discrimination. 
It  is  quite  conceivable  that  the  chronological  sequence 
might  have  been  in  many  details  other  than  it  was,  but 
the  exigencies  of  logic  compel  men  in  a  self-conscious 
cfiort  to  systematize  the  social  tradition  to  recognize  "a 
rational  dependence  of  phenomena" — a  necessity  to 
which  Spencer  himself  has  yielded  in  the  sequence  of 
the  various  parts  of  his  Syyithetic  Philosophy.^  But  this 
distinction,  which  deserves  passing  notice  here,  will  be 
emphasized  from  the  pedagogical  point  of  view  in  a  subse- 
quent chapter. 

It  remains  to  show  more  definitely  that  philosophy 
corresponds  to  the  synthetic  movement  of  the  social  mind 
— a  tendency  toward  integration  which,  no  less  than 
differentiation,  is  a  condition  of  progress.  The  early 
philosopher  had  as  his  field  a  comparatively  homogeneous 
social  tradition  ;  he  regarded  all  wisdom  as  his  proper 
pursuit.'  Aristotle  made  a  rational  effort  to  specialize 
the  social  mind  by  the  preliminary  divisions  of  his  classi- 
fication.* A  classification  of  human  knowledge  is  in  its 
nature  an  act  of  social  self-consciousness.  "In  classing 
the  sciences,"  says  Bacon,  "we  comprehend  not  only 
things  already  invented  and  known  but  also  those  omitted 

>  Essays :  Vol.  II.,  "  The  Classification  of  the  Sciences."  Cf.  also  Fiske  :  loc.  cit.. 
Vol.  1.,  pp.  199-212. 

«  L.  F.  Ward:  "  Sociology  in  lis  Relation  to  the  Social  Sciences,"  .^wKm'can 
Journal  of  Sociology  ,]m\^;  ,  1895. 

»  Flint :   The  History  0/ ike  Philosophy  of  Histoty  (France),  p.  32. 

«  Aristotle  divided  philosophy  or  knowledge  into  (a)  theoretical,  including 
ph>-sics,  mathematics,  and  metaphysics;  (*)  productive,  the  arts;  and  (c)  practi- 
cal or  moral,  comprising  ethics  and  politics,  under  the  latter  of  which  he  also 
placed  rhetoric  and  economics. —  { 'ide  p.  41. 


The  Social  Mind  and  Its  Development.  31 

and  wanted.'"  Here  was  a  definitely  conceived  purpose 
to  review  the  achievements  of  mankind  and  to  plan  an 
intellectual  campaign  for  systematic  conquest. 

Classification  is  a  necessary  preliminary  for  philosophical 
synthesis,  it  is  a  definite  display  of  the  analyzed  elements 
which  are  to  be  organized  into  a  unified  conception.* 
Flint  mentions  eighty-two  philosophers,  from  Plato  and 
Aristotle  to  those  of  the  present,  who  have  worked  out 
classifications  of  the  sciences  and  arts  as  a  part  of  their 
intellectual  contributions.  The  list  includes,  with  few  ex- 
ceptions, the  most  illustrious  names  in  the  history  of 
thought. ' 

Thus  far  the  term  philosophy  has  been  used  as  though 
it  had  a  definite  and  universal  meaning.  Yet  this  is  far 
from  being  the  case.  Perhaps  no  term  in  general  use  is  so 
vaguely  and  variously  conceived.  We  cannot  consider  in 
detail  the  many  theories  which  have  been  advanced  in  the 
past,  but  must  confine  attention  to  certain  modern  views. 
Philosophy  may  be  regarded  as  having  a  hierarchy  of 
functions,  each  of  which  is  an  advance  upon  the  preced- 
ing and  rests  upon  it.  In  this  view  philosophy  may  be 
regarded  as : 

I.  Synthetic,  which  Flint  describes  as  "simply  science 
that  has  attained  to  the  knowledge  of  the  unity,  self- 
consistency,  and  harmony  of  the  teachings  of  the  separate 
sciences."*  Hodgson  in  attempting  to  discriminate  be- 
tween science  and  philosophy  presents  among  other 
theories  virtually  the  same  view,  which  he  characterizes  as 

1  Insiauratto  Magna  (tr.  by  Dewey),  p.  lo. 

2  "All  classification  is  a  striving  after  unity.    To  classify  it  is  necessary  to 
generalize." — L.  F.  Ward  :  Dynamic  Sociology,  Vol.  I.,  p.  3. 

3  Flint :  "  The  Classification  of  the  Sciences,"  Presbyterian  Review,  July,  1885, 
and  July,  1886. 

<  Flint :  "  Philosophy  as  a  Scientia  Scientiaruni,"  Princeton  Review,  November, 
1878,  p.  698. 


2  2  Tfic  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

"  Comtean  Positivism.'"  From  a  French  source  comes  a 
statement  of  a  similar  tenor:  "  Cette  conception  [onto- 
logical]  de  la  philosophic  tend  aujourd'hui  il  disparaitre 
et  etre  rcmplac6e  par  une  autre  beaucoup  plus  facile  ^ 
d(-fendre,  suivant  laquelle  la  philosophic  n'a  pas  d'objet 
special,  est  un  simple  unification  du  savoir,  un  ensemble 
du  generalizations  plus  comprehensive  que  celles  des 
sciences  speciales,  mais  portant  sur  les  memes  objets.  "* 
Spencer  in  his  examination  of  the  nature  of  philosophy 
regards  it  as  a  fusion  of  all  the  contributions  of  the 
sciences  into  a  whole,  ^  and  defines  the  progressive  integra- 
tion of  knowledge  in  these  terms  :  "  Knowledge  of  the 
lowest  kind  is  nn-2inified  knowledge  ;  science  is  partially- 
unijied  knowledge  ;  philosophy  is  completely-tcnified  knowl- 
edge. "^  M.  Berthelot  claims  recognition  for  "an  ideal 
science  of  the  whole"  which  hereafter  shall  do  purposefully 
what  the  systems  of  the  past  did  with  a  sort  of  "uncon- 
scious dissimulation."*  Royce  asserts  that  the  con- 
spicuous tendency  of  modern  thought  is  toward  unity,  the 
reconciliation  of  contradictions,  "the  unification  of  the 
world  which  anarchical  passion  and  analytic  reflection 
have  conspired  to  rend  asunder."*  Not  to  multiply  quo- 
tations which  are  cited  less  as  authorities  than  to  indicate 
the  trend  of  thought  in  minds  which  look  at  the  question 
from  different  points  of  view,  it  is  clear  that  philosophy 
may  be  regarded  in  one  of  its  functions  at  least  as  an 
organization  and  integration  of  the  social  tradition,  a  re- 
flective unification  of  the  special  sciences. 

1  S.  H.  Hodgson  :  "  Philosophy  and  Science,"  Mind,  Januar>-,  1876. 

»  B.  Bourdon  :  Review  of  R.  de  la  Grasserie's  "  De  la  classification,  objective  et 
subjective,  des  arts,  de  la  litt6rature  et  des  sciences,"  Revue  philosophujue.  Vol. 
XIX.,  p.  to6. 

»  First  I\inciples,  p.  132. 

«  Ibid.,  p.  134. 

»  M.  Berthelot :  Science  and  Philosophy,  reviewed  in  j'ifind,  July,  18S6. 

•  Josiah  Royce  :   The  Spirit  of  Modem  Philosophy,  p.  297. 


The  Social  Mind  and  Its  Development.  33 

But  there  are  other  functions  of  philosophy  which  de- 
pend upon  this  first.  They  may  be  hardly  more  than 
indicated  here,  since  they  do  not  come  within  the  limited 
scope  of  this  essay.     Philosophy  may  further  be  regarded  as 

2.  Critical^  examining  the  conditions  of  all  knowledge  ; 
in  the  words  of  Bain,  "tracking  the  facts  of  conscious- 
ness to  their  innermost  deeps,  planting  all  the  special 
sciences  upon  common  ground,  giving  every  objective 
phenomenon  its  highest  validity  by  showing  its  indissoluble 
relation  to  that  fact  of  facts,  self-consciousness.'"  Again 
philosophy  may  be  conceived  as 

3.  Metaphysical,  viewing  all  knowledge  in  its  relation 
to  primary  and  efficient  and  ultimate  and  final  causes.  In 
this  view  philosophy  becomes,  according  to  Hodgson, 
"the  discovery  of  absolute  existence,"  while  the  sciences 
become  scientific  only  "when  they  are  deduced  from  the 
laws  of  the  absolute  existence,  from  which  they  receive 
their  whole  scientific  character.  This  is  the  Hegelian 
view."*  Once  more,  in  so  far  as  philosophy  may  deal 
with  problems  of  conduct  it  may  be  thought  of  as 

4.  Practical  or  moral,  attempting  to  discover  funda- 
mental principles  for  the  guidance  of  humanity. 

However  the  scope  of  philosophy  may  be  conceived, 
the  dependence  of  its  various  functions  upon  the  primary 
task  of  integrating  the  special  sciences  cannot  be  denied. 
Flint  has  stated  the  relation  clearly:  "Philosophy  as 
positive,  i.  e.,  a  unification  of  the  sciences,  must  precede 
philosophy  as  critical,  metaphysical,  and  as  practical. 
Critical  philosophy,  metaphysical  philosophy,  and  prac- 
tical philosophy  must  further  submit  to  be  tested  by  posi- 
tive philosophy,  by  the  collective  results  of  the  sciences. 

1  Communication  on  an  allusion  by  Hodgson  to  Lewes  in  Mind,  April,  1876. 
«  Mind,  January,  1876.     This  is  not  Hodgson's  personal  view,  but  one  of  four 
theories  which  he  enumerates  as  having  prominent  advocates. 


34  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 


What  has  to  be  criticised  are  the  conditions  of  all  the 
sciences.  What  has  to  be  viewed  in  relation  to  primary 
and  efficient,  and  ultimate  final  causes  are  the  results  of  all 
the  sciences.'" 

It  is  with  the  primary  function  of  philosophy,  the  inte- 
gration of  the  special  sciences,  that  this  discussion  is 
concerned.  Yet  the  fact  should  not  be  overlooked  that 
the  highest  philosophic  synthesis  may  go  far  beyond 
merely  a  systematic  effort  to  relate  and  render  coherent  the 
various  fragments  of  the  objective  world  which  the  sciences 
present.  The  deeper  insight  into  the  nature  of  life  is  the 
crowning  achievement  of  the  self-conscious  social  mind. 
This  is  dependent,  however,  upon  the  preliminary  syn- 
thesis. As  Mackenzie  remarks  :  "  If  it  is  the  business  of 
philosophy  to  get  behind  the  work  of  the  sciences  and  see 
their  true  meaning  and  relations,  it  is  clear  that  it  must 
presuppose  a  certain  development  of  the  sciences  and 
cannot  easily  outstrip  them.  We  must  have  got  the  con- 
ceptions and  be  able  to  use  them  with  some  freedom,  . 
before  we  set  ourselves  to  the  task  of  investigating  their 
significance."^  Purposely  confining  attention,  therefore, 
to  this  single  function  of  philosophy,  as  it  is  now  con- 
ceived, we  remark  once  more  that  the  social  tradition 
displays  two  distinct  movements,  a  constant  and  increas- 
ingly definite  analysis  into  parts,  and  a  complementary 
recombination  of  these  parts  into  general  conceptions  of 
the  whole.  ^     To  revert  to  a  figure  already  employed,  the 

1  Flint :  "  Philosophy  as  a  Scientia  Scientiarum,"  Pr-inceton  Rci'iew,  November, 
1878,  p.  714. 

»  An  Introduction  to  Social  Philosophy,  p.  38. 

»  There  seems  to  be  discoverable  in  scientific  division  of  labor  a  tendency  to 
specialization  according  to  problmis  rather  in  artificially  and  arbitrarily  ab- 
stracted subjects.  Such  terms  as  "  physical-chemistr>-,"  ^'  astro-physics,"  "  chemi- 
cal physiolopy-,"  "  physiological  psychology,"  etc.,  are  full:^  significance.  There 
are  subordinate  syntheses  among  groups  of  sciences.  ' 

L.  F.  Ward  has  pointed  out  the  relations  of  science  and  philosophy.     The 


The  Social  Mind  and  Its  Development.  35 

stream  of  social  consciousness  not  only  flows  in  more  and 
more  definite  channels  through  the  minds  of  men  devoted 
to  the  various  parts  of  the  tradition,  but  now  and  again 
the  separate  currents  converge  in  the  consciousness  of  one 
individual  and  issue  forth  a  fuller  and  deeper  unity'  only 
once  more  to  undergo  division  and  separation. 

Such  in  general  is  the  rhythm  of  the  social  mind,  yet 
beneath  the  seeming  chaos  of  ideas  and  feelings  it  is  hard 
to  trace  the  movement  in  definite  outlines.  Only  a  broad 
glance  over  a  wide  sweep  of  history  can  reveal  the  process. 
Contrast  Aristotle's  vague  classification  of  the  sciences 
with  the  definite  divisions  of  Comte,''  Shields,'^  or  Wundt,^ 
and  compare  the  incoherent  explanations  of  medieval 
philosophers  with  the  precisely  stated,  though  tentative, 
generalizations  of  Von  Baer,  Meyer,  Darwin,  or  Spencer. 

Philosophy,  like  the  sciences — from  which  it  differs  in 
scope  and  definiteness  rather  than  essential  nature* — 
passes  from  unconsciousness  to  social  self-consciousness. 
"  Whether  we  will  it  or  no,"  says  Royce,  "we  all  of  us  do 
philosophize.  The  difference  between  the  temperament 
which  loves  technical  philosophy  and  the  temperament 
which  can  make  nothing  of  so-called  metaphysics  is 
rather  one  of  degree  than  of  kind."*     The  difference  of 

former  is  concerned  with  ideal  relations  of  coexistence  or  independent  existence, 
the  latter  with  real  relations  of  sequence  and  dependence  in  a  system.  Dynamic 
Sociology,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  3  and  4. 

1  Tarde  describes  this  process  as  philosophy  which  is  M«j'-conj«OMj.  ".  .  .  la 
phllosophie,  c'est  tout  simplement  I'fitat  uni-conscient  de  la  science,  succ^dant, 
progrfis  immense  i  son  6tat  morcel6,  6miett6,  multi-conscient.  .  .  ."—Lac.  cit., 
p.  204. 

s  Loc.  cil.,  Tome  1.,  2me  Legon. 

8  The  Order  0/ 1  he  Sciences. 

<"Uberdie  Entstehung  der  Wissenschaften." — Philosophische  Studien  (Bd. 
v.).  Cf.  also  R.  de  la  Grasserie's  De  la  classification,  objective  et  subjective,  des 
arts,  de  la  litlerature  et  des  sciences. 

5  Elach  science  has  its  philosophy  which  gives  it  unity.  An  inclusive  philosophy 
of  the  sciences  bears  the  »ame  relation  to  the  group  of  these  special  pursuits. 

«  The  Spirit  0/  Modem  Philosophy,  p.  2. 


36  The  Social  Mind  atid  Education. 

degree  registers  itself  in  terms  of  self-consciousness.  The 
social  tradition,  at  first  vaguely  and  unconsciously  unified, 
becomes  gradually  the  object  of  more  and  more  purpose- 
ful, reflective  attention '  until  the  culminating  triumph  of 
collective  self-consciousness  is  a  philosophy  which  repre- 
sents a  systematically  planned  effort  to  organize  into  unity 
the  varied  contents  of  the  social  memory.'  Philosophy, 
like  the  sciences,  is  a  product  of  social  maturity. 

The  relation  of  the  sciences  and  philosophy  is  one  of 
interdependence.  Philosophy,  dealing  with  the  materials 
which  the  sciences  supply,  must  await  their  results  and 
adjust  itself  to  their  discoveries.  On  the  other  hand, 
philosophy  aids  each  special  science  by  pointing  out  its 
relations  to  other  pursuits,'  and  as  a  coordinating  agency 
helps  to  show  how  the  various  sciences  may  assist  each 
other.' 

The  development  of  each  science  does  not  display  a 
definitely  linear  series  of  analysis  and  synthesis  ;  there  is 
no  conscious  determination  to  avoid  unifying  hypotheses 
until  all  particulars  have  been  isolated  and  examined.  On 
the  contrary,  analysis  and  synthesis  are  concomitant.* 
A  few  data  are  combined  into  a  guiding  theory,  which  is 
then  tested  by  continued  experiment,  or  wider  observation, 

1  In  connection  with  this  subject  Spencer's  description  of  the  stages  through 
which  human  opinion  passes  is  significant.  The  steps  of  the  progress  are : 
"the  unanimity  of  the  ignorant;  the  disagreement  of  the  inquiring,  and  the 
unanimity  of  the  wise." — Education,  p.  loi.  In  other  words,  the  advance  is  from 
unconscious  passivity  to  conscious  observation  and  to  seif<onscious  agreement. 

«  It  should  be  remembered  that  this  process  of  unification  cannot  be  completely 
based  on  positive  scientific  knowledge.  Falckenberg  insists  that  a  new  meta- 
phv-sics  is  needed  to  supply  the  gaps  in  experience  and  obsers-ation  and  thus 
effect  a  wn\iy.— History  0/  Modem  Philosophy  (tr.),  p.  625. 

»  Flint :  "  Philosophy  as  a  Scientia  Scientiarum,"  Princeton  Review,  November, 
1S7S.  p.  699. 

4  Ihid.,  p.  70J. 

'  Spencer  :  Essays,\'o\.  II.,  "  The  Genesis  of  Science,"  p.  24. 


The  Social  Mind  and  Its  Development.  37 

modified  to  include  newly  discovered  truths,  or,  if  it  fail 
to  explain  them,  abandoned  for  a  more  adequate  hypoth- 
esis. ' 

So  it  is  with  the  progress  of  philosophy.  The  social 
tradition  includes  at  the  same  time  special  sciences  and 
unifying  philosophies  in  action  and  reaction.  Yet  the 
dependence  of  philosophy  upon  the  sciences  is  more 
obvious  than  the  service  of  philosophy  to  the  sciences. 
"It  often  happens  in  philosophy,"  says  Fostor,  "that  a 
question  is  forgotten  for  a  time  while  science  prepares 
materials  for  asking  it  and  answering  it  more  definitely."* 
Spencer  recognizes  this  relation  of  philosophy  to  science 
when  he  remarks  that  a  single  modern  observation  "has 
to  be  digested  by  the  organism  of  the  sciences."'  The 
reason  why  the  service  which  philosophy  may  render  to 
the  sciences  has  not  been  more  clearly  perceived  is  to 
be  found  in  the  fact  that  philosophy  in  the  modern  sense  * 
has  only  within  comparatively  recent  times  emerged  into 
the  social  self-consciousness.  Philosophy  has  often  seemed 
so  remotely  related  to  science  in  the  past  that  the  term 
does  not  commend  itself  readily  to  scientific  minds.*     But 

1  Comte :  loc.  cit..  Tome  I.,  p.  7. 

a  H.  M.  Fostor  :  "  Organic  Evolution  and  Mental  Elaboration,"  Mind,  October, 
1895- 

8  Essays,  Vol.  II.,  p.  67. 

4  Mr.  John  Fiske's  statement  of  the  cosmic  philosophy  may  be  regarded  as  fairly 
typical  :  "  The  cosmic  philosophy  is  founded  upon  the  recognition  of  an  Absolute 
Power  manifested  in  and  through  the  world  of  phenomena  ;  and  it  consists  in  a 
synthesis  of  scientific  truths  into  a  universal  science  dealing  with  the  order  of  the 
phenomenal  manifestations  of  the  Absolute  ?ov/e\."— Outlines  0/  Cosmic  Philoso- 
phy, Vol.  I.,  p.  263. 

6  Prof  Josiah  Royce  has  put  these  imaginary  sentences  into  the  mouths  of  the 
scientists:  "See  these  idealists!  They  have  long  tried  to  call  the  world  their 
dream  and  to  construct  it  a  priori.  But  they  grow  hungr>-  in  their  wilderness, 
feeding  the  swine  of  strange  masters  and  longing  for  the  ver>- husks  of  specula- 
tive guess-work  and  delusion.  Now  they  come  back  like  prodigals,  hoping  that 
experience,  our  master,  will  have  facts  and  enough  to  spare  for  them.  In  truth 
bad  they  remained  at  home  their  reflective  cleverness  might  have  been  of  much 
use  to  science.     But  they  took  the  portion  of  intelligence  that  belonged  to  them, 


38  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 


the  definite  effort  to  bring  the  sciences  and  philosophy 
into  organic  relations  is  only  another  evidence  of  a  syn- 
thetic movement  in  the  social  mind.  With  the  progress 
of  this  movement,  the  aid  which  a  positive  philosophy  can 
render  in  the  advancement  of  the  special  sciences  will  be 
more  and  more  clearly  recognized. 

Philosophy  in  its  socially  self-conscious  phase  represents 
the  effort  of  a  mature  collective  mind  to  preser\'e  its  unity. 
The  social  tradition,  accumulated,  sifted,  and  organized 
with  increasing  definiteness  and  purpose,  has  been  divided 
into  many  sciences.  All  the  materials  of  this  growth  have 
been  derived  from  the  phenomena  of  nature  and  human 
consciousness  combined  in  the  unity  of  social  life.  It 
follows,  therefore,  that  the  sciences  themselves  must  make 
up  a  great  whole,  and  that  the  system  which  they  form 
must  itself  be  an  object  of  knowledge.'  In  other  words, 
there  must  be  a  "science  of  the  sciences"  and  this  general 
science  is  philosophy.'' 

and  went  away,  and  here  they  come  now,  in  all  the  rags  of  their  poor  systems." — 
The  Spirit  of  Modern  Philosophy,  p.  270. 

Ward  declares  that:  "The  leading  distinction  between  modem  and  ancient 
philosophy  is  that  the  former  proceeds  from  facts  while  the  latter  proceeds  from 
assumptions.  Ever>' science  is  at  the  same  time  a  philosophy." — "  The  Data  of 
Sociology,"  American  Journal  of  Sociology ,  May,  1896. 

1  Flint :  "  Philosophy  as  a  Scientia  Scientiarum,"  Princeton  Review,  November, 
1878,  p.  697. 

*  "  Philosophy  claims  to  be  the  science  of  the  whole  ;  but  if  we  get  the  knowledge 
of  the  parts  from  the  different  sciences,  what  is  there  left  for  philosophy  to  tell  us? 
To  this  it  is  sufficient  to  answer  generally  that  the  s>Tithesis  of  the  parts  is  some- 
thing more  than  detailed  knowledge  of  the  parts  in  separation  which  is  gained 
by  the  man  of  science.  It  is  with  the  ultimate  synthesis  that  philosophy  concerns 
itself,  it  has  to  show  that  the  subject  matter  which  we  are  all  dealing  with  in 
detail  really  is  a  whole,  consisting  of  articulated  members."— A.  Seth  :  Encyclo- 
pcedia  Brxtannica.  "  Philosophy,"  Vol.  XVIIt.,  p.  792. 


CHAPTER  II. 

SOCIAL    PHILOSOPHY    AS    A   SCIENTIA    SCIENTIARUM. 

In  Chapter  I.  we  described  the  formal  process  by  which 
social  knowledge  advances  from  vague  unconsciousness  in 
common  empiricism  to  definite,  reflective,  and  purposeful 
organization  in  sciences  which  are  themselves  integrated  in 
philosophy.  The  next  step  will  include  both  an  examina- 
tion of  the  content  of  this  process,  /.  <?. ,  the  general 
classes  of  sciences  which  have  been  gradually  formed  in 
the  course  of  social  development,  and  an  attempt  to  show 
that  they  are  naturally  and  rationally  related  and  combined 
in  a  philosophy  of  society  which  by  virtue  of  such  service 
becomes  truly  a  "science  of  the  sciences." 

Whewell  in  his  Philosophy  of  the  Inductive  Sciences  ' 
presents  two  charts  which  are  designed  to  show  the 
progressive  generalizations  of  astronomy  and  optics  re- 
spectively from  the  earliest  recorded  observations  of  the 
Greeks  to  the  sweepingly  inclusive  theory  of  universal 
gravitation  and  the  undulatory  hypothesis.  In  another 
work,  the  same  author  employs  this  figure  :  "The  table  of 
the  progress  of  any  science  would  thus  resemble  the  map 
of  a  river,  in  which  the  waters  from  separate  sources  unite 
and  make  rivulets,  which  again  meet  with  rivulets  from 
other  fountains,  and  thus  go  on  forming  by  their  junction 
trunks  of  a  higher  and  higher  order."*  The  same  thought 
extended  to  the  sciences  in  their  relations  to  each  other 

1  p.  ii8. 

8  History  of  the  Inductive  Sciences,  p.  14. 

39 


40 


The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 


would  make  philosophy  a  great  stream  gathering  up  the 
tributaries  and  rivulets  of  the  various  special  pursuits. 
A  chart  which  should  exhibit  in  a  synoptic  view  the 
chronological  development  of  the  various  sciences  in  verti- 
cal columns,  and  indicate  by  horizontal  lines  the  chief 
attempts  of  philosophy  to  bind  these  parts  into  unity, 
would  be  of  great  value  if  it  could  avoid,  on  the  one  hand, 
bewildering  complexity  of  details,  and,  on  the  other, 
misleading  uniformity  and  apparent  definiteness. 

It  has  been  shown  that  all  science  has  its  origin  in 
the  common  experiences  of  social  life.'  The  various 
phenomena  of  the  environment,  physical  and  psychical, 
have  demanded  attention  and  explanation.  Empirical 
attempts  to  modify  and  utilize  the  materials  and  forces  of 
nature  have  preceded  rational  and  systematic  inquiry  into 
their  nature  and  laws  which  has  in  turn  resulted  in  more 
successful  practical  applications."  The  dictum  that  "every 
science  has  its  art"  may  be  more  properly  reversed  and 
modified  into  "every  art  has  its  sciences,"  for  science  has 
sprung  from  art  and  every  concrete  art  requires  the  syn- 
thesis of  two  or  more  abstract  sciences.^  From  doing 
things  men  have  advanced  to  rationalizing,  reflecting 
upon  the  things  they  do,  and  in  this  process  the  concrete 
things  themselves  have  been  separated  into  ideal  parts 
which  have  become  objects  of  more  or  less  isolated  study. 
These  abstracted,  subjective  products  have  been  gradually 
arranged  into  so-called  sciences.  The  attempt  to  form 
these  various  groups  on  some  rational  plan  has  been  one  of 
the  problems  of  philosophy.  There  have  been  many 
solutions.     Aristotle's  classification  assumed  as  its  criterion 

1  Spencer  :  Essays,  Vol.  II.,  "  The  Genesis  of  Science,"  p.  71. 

»  A.  Lalande  :  Philosophie  des  sciences,  pp.  i ,  2. 

»  Flint  :  "  Philosophy  as  a  Scientia  Scientiarum,"  PHnccton  Reviav,  November, 
1878. 


Social  Philosophy  as  a  Scientia  Scientiarian.         41 

the  ends  which  the  various  pursuits  may  serve.  Knowl- 
edge may  be  (a)  theoretical,  if  it  serve  the  end  of  pure 
thought  in  physics,  mathematics,  and  metaphysics  ;  (^) 
productive,  if  it  be  applied  to  the  tangible  things  of  life  in 
the  arts,  or  (r)  practical,  if  it  deal  with  problems  of 
individual  and  social  conduct  in  ethics  and  politics.  Logic 
was  regarded  by  Aristotle  as  the  fundamental  discipline 
preceding  and  conditioning  all  the  other  forms  of  knowl- 
edge.'  The  Stoics  adopted  a  tripartite  division  into  (a) 
logic  to  guide  the  reason,  (<5)  physics  to  explain  the 
world,  and  (r)  ethics  to  rule  the  moral  life.  The  vague 
generality  of  this  scheme  made  it  wide  enough  to  include 
almost  everything,  although  it  seems  to  have  ignored 
metaphysics,  mathematics,  psychology,  and  theology.  "^ 

It  would  not  be  worth  our  while  to  follow  in  detail  the 
fanciful  arrangements  of  knowledge  on  the  basis  of  such 
intangible  ideas  as  ' '  four  kinds  of  light ' '  ^  which  reveal 
truth,  or  four  "mirrors"  of  nature — doctrine,  science, 
history,  and  morals,^  or  Dante's  poetical  identification  of 
the  ten  divisions  of  the  sky  with  the  ten  sciences,  by 
which  the  moon  was  made  the  symbol  of  grammar,  Venus 
of  rhetoric,  and  so  on  through  the  list. 

The  educational  curriculum  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the 
seven  so-called  liberal  arts  included  in  the  triviiuji  and  the 
quadriviuni,'  is  of  significance  as  showing  the  generally 
accepted  ideas  as  to  what  organized  bodies  of  knowledge 
ought  systematically  to  be  transmitted  from  generation  to 
generation.  These  studies  represent  socially  purposeful 
efforts.  The  rest  of  the  tradition  was  unconsciously 
transmitted  in  the  form  of  common  sense,  technical  skill, 

1  Metaphysics  (tr.  by  McMahon),  p.  157. 

*  A.  Lalande,  pp.  42-44. 

»  St.  Boiiaventura  (1221-1274).    Flint:  /oc  c/'/.,  p.  417. 

*  Vincent  of  Beauvais.     Ibid.,  p.  417. 

6  Compayrt  :  History  of  Pedagogy  (tr.  by  Payne),  p.  75. 


42  Tlw  Social  Mind  and  Education. 


legends,     customs,     and    laws.     The    liberal    arts    were : 

gr.immar,  dialectics  or  logic,  and  rhetoric,  music,  arith- 
metic, geometry,  and  astronomy,  all,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  the  last,  formal  pursuits.  The  concrete 
studies  were  neglected,  save  perhaps  in  a  few  convents 
where  the  works  of  Aristotle  were  preserved  and  perused. ' 
But  this  does  not  mean  that  there  was  no  knowledge  of 
nature,  man,  and  society  ;  only  that  such  knowledge  ex- 
isted in  an  empirical,  socially  unconscious  form.  Re- 
flective and  purposeful  effort  was  expended  upon  the 
mental  processes  of  men,  upon  the  machinery'  of  thought 
and  expression. 

As  a  result  of  this  situation  there  was  great  indistinct- 
ness of  scientific  ideas.  Even  the  many  clear  notions  of 
antiquity  tended  to  lose  their  definiteness.  "When  men 
merely  repeat  the  terms  of  science,"  declares  Whewell, 
"without  attaching  to  them  any  clear  conceptions  ;  when 
their  apprehensions  become  vague  and  dim  ;  when  they 
assent  to  scientific  doctrines  as  a  matter  of  tradition,  rather 
than  of  conviction,  on  trust  rather  than  on  sight  ;  when  * 
science  is  considered  as  a  collection  of  opinions,  rather 
than  a  record  of  laws  by  which  the  universe  is  really 
governed — it  must  inevitably  happen  that  men  will  lose 
their  hold  on  the  truths  which  the  great  discoverers  who 
preceded  them  have  brought  to  light. ' ' " 

In  such  circumstances  little  scientific  progress  was  possi- 
ble— in  fact,  there  was  actual  loss  of  ground — and  attempts 
to  classify  knowledge  into  definite  groups  were  doomed  to 
failure. 

Roger  Bacon  was  "the  first  encyclopedic  philosopher 
who  emerged  from  the  shadows  of  the   Middle  Ages.  "^ 

1  Compayrfi  :  loc.  cil.,  p.  76. 

»  History  of  the  Inductive  Sciences,  p.  2%%. 

*  De  Greef :  V evolution  des  croyances  et  dts  doctrines  politique s,  p.  37. 


Social  Philosophy  as  a  Scientia  Scientiarum.         43 

He  urged  the  necessity  of  observation  and  enlarged  men's 
conceptions  by  his  advocacy  of  linguistic,  optical,  and 
experimental  studies,'  but  the  limited  development  of  the 
sciences  prevented  him  from  offering  a  really  useful  classi- 
fication. 

Little  progress  was  made  until  Francis  Bacon  so  vigo- 
rously stimulated  social  consciousness  by  his  famous  ex- 
hibit of  human  learning."  The  principle  of  classification  is 
subjective,  i.  e.,  based  upon  the  abstracted  faculties  of 
memory,  imagination,  and  reason,  out  of  which  grow 
history,  poesy,  and  philosophy  respectively.  This  classi- 
fication is  vulnerable  at  many  points.  It  is  based  upon  a 
false,  artificial  psychology ;  it  separates  subjects  which 
belong  naturally  together,  as,  for  example,  when  it  divides 
physiology  into  animal  and  human^;  again  it  unites  what 
ought  to  be  separated  in  combining  metaphysics  with 
physics'*;  but  the  principles  of  historical  judgment  demand 
a  contemporary  standard.  Considered  from  the  point  of 
view  of  his  times.  Bacon's  classification  is  a  remarkable 
contribution  to  the  progress  of  thought.  Moreover,  it  is 
valuable  as  an  enumeration  and  discrimination  of  sciences, 
as  an  aid  in  their  more  definite  formation.  Bacon  seemed 
consciously  to  recognize  this  service.  "It  is  the  office," 
he  says,  "of  all  sciences  to  shorten  the  long  turnings  and 
windings  of  experience  so  as  to  remove  the  ancient  com- 
plaint of  the  scantiness  of  life  and  the  tediousness  of  art ; 
this  is  best  performed  by  collecting  and  uniting  the  axioms 
of  the  sciences  into  more  general  ones,  that  shall  suit  the 
matter  of  all  individuals.  For  the  sciences  are  like  pyra- 
mids,   erected  upon  the  single  basis  of   history  and  ex- 

i  Flint:  "  The  Classification  of  the  Sciences,"  Thf  Prfsbylerian  Review, ]\i\y, 
1885,  p.  417. 

s  Insiauratio  Magna  (tr.  by  Dewey),  pp.  77  sq. 
8  Ibid.,  p.  156. 
4  Ibid.,  p.  144. 


44  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

perience.'"  In  a  broad,  preliminary  way  Bacon  may  be 
said  to  have  divided  science  or  general  philosophy  into  the 
sciences  of  (i)  God,  (2)  Nature,  (3)  Man,  and  C4) 
Society.  There  remained,  however,  within  this  classifica- 
tion much  confusion,  overlapping,  and  artificial  synthesis, 
which  with  the  growth  of  more  definite  conceptions  have 
been  in  large  measure  corrected. 

Descartes  proposed  no  complete  classification  of  the 
sciences,  but  made  a  broad  division  into  (i)  metaphysics^ 
under  which  he  included  the  principles  of  knowledge,  the 
attributes  of  God,  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  (2) 
physics,  by  which  he  meant  the  principles  of  material 
things — earth,  air,  water,  plants,  animals,  and  man.  By 
means  of  such  knowledge,  he  declared,  the  other  sciences 
become  intelligible.  Descartes  employs  the  favorite  figure 
of  the  tree  of  knowledge,  the  root  of  which  is  metaphysics, 
the  trunk  physics,  and  the  branches  all  the  other  sciences 
which  grow  out  of  the  latter.  This  seems  to  be  a  rather 
definite  recognition  of  the  natural  dependence  of  the  more 
complex  upon  the  simpler  sciences. "  ^ 

Hobbes  offered  a  classification  on  the  basis  of  two  kinds 
of  knowledge  :  (i)  of  fads — history;  (2)  of  coyisequeyices — 
science.  This  scheme  was  worked  out  with  great  inge- 
nuity but  did  not  contribute  to  the  more  definite  formation 
of  the  science  groups.^ 

There  would  be  little  profit  in  examining  in  detail  the 
various  classifications  of  the  sciences  proposed  by  Locke,* 

i/wrf.,  p.  139. 

s  "  Ainsi  toute  le  philosophic  est  comme  un  arbre,  dont  les  racines  sont  la 
metaphysique,  le  tronc  est  la  physique,  et  les  branches  qui  sortent  de  ce  tronc 
sont  les  autres  sciences  qui  se  r^duisent  a  trois  principales,  i  savoir  la  mtdecine, 
la  mfcanique  et  la  morale  ;  j'entends  la  plus  haute  et  la  plus  parfaite  morale,  qui, 
prfsupposant  une  entiSre  connaissance  des  autres  sciences,  est  le  dernier  degr6 
de  la  sagesse." — Les  Principes.  Ed.  Liard,  pp.  19-21. 

8  Leviathan,  Molesworth  Ed.  of  Collected  Works,  Vol.  III.,  pp,  71-73. 

<"A11  that  can  fall  within  the  compass  of  human  understanding,  being  either. 


Social  Philosophy  as  a  Scientia  Scientiaruni.         45 

Leibnitz,'  and  Wolff,*  all  of  which  were  subjective  and 
speculative,  resulting  in  cross-classification  rather  than  in 
coordination.  They  were  constructed  in  virtual  independ- 
ence of  experimental  knowledge  and  consequently  ignored 
the  existence  of  a  natural  objective  relationship  between 
different  groups  of  knowledge. 

The  far-reaching  influence  of  Kant  could  not  fail  to 
affect  the  problem  of  classification.  It  is  treated  in  the 
Kritik  der  Reinen  Vernunft,  in  the  chapter  on  the  "Archi- 
tectonik  der  Reinen  Vernunft."  Kant's  conception  of 
science  as  an  organism  which  grows  from  within,  as  a 
system  of  conceptions  unified  by  a  central  regulative  idea,^ 
is  of  more  value  to  our  present  discussion  than  is  his 
classification  itself.  This  betrays  the  same  ignorance,  or 
at  least  neglect  of  experience,  which  vitiates  so  many 
philosophic  attempts  at  the  coordination  of  knowledge.* 

Hegel  constructed  a  comprehensive  ideal  scheme  which 
was  consciously  designed  to  unify  all  experience,  objective 
and  subjective.  The  philosophy  of  nature  aimed  to  give 
a  complete  account  of  the  external  world,   and  the  phi- 

yfri/,  the  nature  of  things,  as  they  are  in  themselves,  their  relations,  and  their 
manner  of  operation ;  or,  secondly,  that  which  man  himself  ought  to  do,  as  a 
rational  and  voluntary  agent  for  the  attainment  of  any  end,  especially  happiness  ; 
or, /AiVrf/y,  the  ways  and  means  whereby  the  knowledge  of  both  the  one  and  the 
other  of  these  is  attained  and  communicated  ;  I  think  science  may  be  divided 
properly  into  these  three  sorts." — Hitman  Understanding,  Ed.  by  Frazer,  Vol.  II., 
p.  460. 

1  Nouveaux  Kssais,  Ed.  by  Von  Gerhardt,  Vol.  V.,  pp.  503-509. 

Leibnitz  supports  the  ancient  tripartite  division  into  physics,  ethics,  and  logic. 

2  Wolff's  classification  is  implied  in  the  phrase,  "  cognitio  humana,  historica, 
philosophica  el  matheraatica."     Philosophia  Rationalis  sive  Logica,  etc.,  pp.  1-3. 

3  "  Das  Ganze  ist  also  gegliedert  (articulatio)  und  nicht  gehauft  (coacervatio); 
es  kann  zwar  iniierlich  (per  intussusceptioiiL'm)  wachsen,  wie  ein  thierischer 
Korper,  dessen  wachstum  kcin  Glied  hinzusetzen,  sondern  ohne  Veranderung 
der  Proportion  ein  jedes  zu  seinen  Zwecken  sliirker  und  tiichtiger  macht."  — 
Sdmmlkhe  Werke,  Ausg.  Hartenstein,  Bd.  III.,  S.  54S. 

4  As  an  illustration  of  Kant's  method  the  following  passage  may  be  cited : 
"  Wenn  ich  von  allem  Inhalte  der  Erkeiintniss,  objectiv  bctrachtct,  abstrahire,  so 
ist  alles  Erkenntniss  subjectiv,  entweder  historisch  oder  national. — /.or.  cit.,  p.  550. 


46  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 


losophy  of  spirit  sought  to  do  the  same  for  human  con- 
sciousness, both  in  its  subjective  phenomena  and  its 
external  manifestations  in  social  institutions  and  their 
development.  Without  undertaking  to  discuss  the  ideal 
scheme  as  a  whole,  we  emphasize  the  fact  that  this  classifi- 
cation exhibits  clearly  sciences  (i)  of  nature,  (2)  of  man, 
and  (3)  of  man  and  nature  in  interaction.'  Hegel's 
apparent  failure  to  realize  that  though  nature  were  merely 
objectified  idea,  that  idea  could  be  truly  comprehended 
only  by  scrutiny  of  nature  herself,  renders  the  minor 
details  of  his  scheme  of  no  scientific  value.  His  contribu- 
tion is  almost  wholly  a  philosophic  service. 

Dr.  Neil  Arnott's"^  classification  of  knowledge  about 
nature  is  divided  into  two  parts  :  (i)  natural  history — 
materials  of  the  universe,  and  (2)  science  or  philosophy, 
including  (a)  physics,  (<5)  chemistry,  (<:)  science  of  life, 
and  (flf)  science  of  mind.  Of  this  second  group  Arnott 
writes  :  "They  may  be  said  to  form  a  pyramid  of  sciences, 
of  which  physics  is  the  base,  while  the  others  constitute 
succeeding  layers  in  the  order  mentioned,  the  whole" 
having  certain  mutual  relations  and  dependencies  well- 
figured  by  the  parts  of  a  pyramid."  This  idea  approaches 
closely  the  principle  of  the  classification  suggested  by 
Burdin,  published  by  Saint  Simon,  but  elaborated  and 
incorporated  into  a  general  system  of  philosophy  by 
Comte.^ 

The   general    principles    of    Comte's    classification  are  : 

1  It  is  not  asserted  that  Hegel  made  the  statement  in  this  form  but  that  his 
division  substantially  included  these  sciences.  The  classification  of  Hegel  is 
thus  given  in  the  introduction  to  his  Encyclopddie  der philosophischen  U'issen- 
chaften:  "  1.  Die  Logik,  die  Wissenschaft  der  Idee  an  und  fur  sich  ;  II.  Die 
Naturphilosophie  als  die  Wissenschaft  der  Idee  in  ihrem  Anderssehn ;  III.  Die 
Philosophic  des  Geistes  als  der  Idee,  die  aus  ihrem  Anderssehn  in  sich  zuruck- 
kehnr—lf^erke,  Bd.  VI.,  S.  26. 

a  Elements  0/ Physics,  cited  by  Flint.    I  have  been  unable  to  find  the  volume. 

S  Fouill^e  :  Le  mouvement  positiviste  et  la  conception  sociologique  dii  rnond,  p.  2. 


Social  Philosophy  as  a  Scieyitia  Scieniiarum.         47 


first,  a  division  of  sciences  into  abstract  and  concrete, 
i.  e.,  into  sciences  that  deal  with  the  laws  which  govern 
the  elementary  facts  of  nature,  laws  on  which  all  phe- 
nomena actually  realized  must  depend,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  sciences  that  concern  themselves  only  with  the 
particular  combinations  of  phenomena  which  are  found  in 
existence.'  This  discrimination  has  been  attacked  by 
Spencer,  who  uses  the  terms  in  a  different  sense,  but  the 
criticism  does  not  seem  of  vital  importance,  indeed  is 
chiefly  a  verbal  quibble.'^  The  next  step  consists  in  an 
arrangement  of  these  abstract  sciences  in  a  scale  or 
"hierarchy,"  of  decreasing  simplicity  or  generality  and 
increasing  complexity  or  speciality,  so  that  each  science 
will  depend  naturally  on  that  which  precedes  it.  Mathe- 
matics is  made  the  basis,  as  being  the  most  general  of  all 
in  its  range,  then  follow  astronomy,  physics,  chemistry, 
biology  (including  "transcendental  biology"),  and  social 
physics,  or  sociology.  The  same  hierarchical  plan  is 
applied  with  varying  success  to  the  subdivisions  of  the 
different  sciences.  Comte  himself  admitted  that  "il  faut 
commercer  par  reconnaitre  que,  quelque  naturelle  que 
puisse  etre  une  telle  classification,  elle  renfermera  toujours 
n6cessairement  quelque  chose,  sinon  d'arbitraire  du  moins 
d'artificiel,  de  maniere  a  presenter  un  imperfection  veri- 
table."' It  is  not  a  part  of  our  plan  to  review  the  discus- 
sions to  which  this  classification  has  given  rise.  Thus 
much  remains  after  the  critics  have  done  their  worst :  the 
sciences  are  grouped  into  three  general  classes  :  ( i )  formal 
(mathematics);  (2)  inorganic  nature  (astronomy,  physics, 
chemistry);  (3)  organic  nature  (physiology  or  biology 
and  social   physics  or  sociology);   but,    what  is  of   chief 

1  Loc.  cit.,  Tome  I.,  pp.  57  sq. 

•  Fiske:  Cosmic  Philosophy,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  193-220.    J.  S.  Mill  :     The  Positive  Phi- 
losophy of  Anguste  Comte,  p.  41,  note. 
8  Loc.  cit.,  Tome  I.,  p.  10. 


48  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

importance,  they  .^re  seen  to  be  in  such  dependence  that 
as  the  mind  seeks  to  explain  the  highest  phenomena,  it 
finds  itself  of  necessity  forced  back  along  the  series  step  by 
step.  Yet  in  this  unbroken  sequence  there  is  a  deception. 
No  physiology,  even  transcendental,  can  bridge  the  chasm 
between  vital  and  social  phenomena.'  Comte  felt  such 
contempt  for  psychology,  was  indeed  so  ignorant  of  it 
that  he  prematurely  completed  his  scheme  and  gave  to  it  a 
spurious  appearance  of  finality. 

If  we  turn  to  the  classification  of  Comte' s  chief  critic, 
Spencer,  we  naturally  expect  to  find  a  wholly  different 
arrangement.  But  when  all  discussion  of  terms  and  prin- 
ciples is  done  and  we  are  confronted  with  a  synoptic  view 
of  Spencer's  scheme,  it  transpires  that  in  spite  of  division 
into  "abstract,"  "abstract-concrete,"  and  "concrete" 
sciences,  the  hierarchical  order  persists,  although  greatly 
improved  by  the  placing  of  astronomy  after  physics  and 
chemistry,  and  by  the  interpolation  of  psychology  between 
biology  and  sociology.*  At  almost  the  same  time  that 
Spencer  denies  the  validity  of  the  hierarchy  he  admits  the 
general,  progressive  dependence  and  in  his  system  of  Syn-' 
thetic  Philosophy  treats  the  concrete  sciences  in  this  order.' 

Bain,  Shields,  Stanley,  Flint,  and  others  who  have 
more  recently  proposed  classifications  of  the  sciences,  have 
either  consciously  recognized  or,  what  is  quite  as  signifi- 
cant, unconsciously  adopted  in  general  the  hierarchical 
arrangement.  If  other  proof  were  needed  that  this  idea  of 
dependence  has  emerged  into  social  self-consciousness,  it 

1  Fouillee  recognizes  this  gap  and  seeks  to  fill  it  by  the  synthesis  of  the  idea  of 
organism  on  the  one  side  and  that  of  the  social  contract  on  the  other:  "Nous 
croyons  qu'il  faut  unir  les  deux  id^es  d'organisme  social  et  de  contrat  social  dans 
une  id6e  plus  comprehensive,  que  nous  appellerons  1'  organisme  contractuel. — 
Loc.  cit.,  p.  III. 

»  Spencer  :  Essays,  Vol.  II.,  "  The  Classification  of  the  Sciences,"  pp.  84-95. 

»  Ward  :  "  The  Place  of  SocioIog>-  among  the  Sciences,"  American  Journal  of 
Sociology,  July,  1895. 


Social  Philosophy  as  a  Scieyitia  Scieyitiarum.        49 

might  be  found  in  the  organization  of  educational  curricula, 
and  in  the  arrangement  of  scientific  compilations.' 

Yet  there  is  a  deceptive  completeness  and  continuity 
about  this  hierarchy  which  requires  careful  examination. 
Is  it  made  up  of  perfectly  connected  parts  or  does  it  fall 
into  certain  divisions,  internally  integrated,  but  externally 
less  intimately  joined  ?  We  have  seen  that  in  all  the 
classifications,  with  the  exception  of  Comte's,  there  has 
been  a  more  or  less  definite  grouping  into  sciences  of 
form,  of  nature,  of  man,  and,  in  several  cases,  of  society. 
In  other  words,  phenomena  are  broadly  divided  into  : 
physical,  vital,  psychical,  and  social.  It  is  one  thing  to 
assert  that  there  is  an  order  of  progressive  dependence 
among  these  phenomena  ;  quite  another  to  declare  that 
the  transition  from  one  to  the  other  forms  a  chain  of 
unbroken  and  clearly  perceived  causal  continuity.  Life 
and  consciousness  may  be  accounted  for  in  terms  of 
chemistry,  but  scientific  demonstration  of  the  relation  is 
still  lacking.^ 

It  is  now  in  order  to  revert  to  a  statement  made  in 
Chapter  I.'  and  to  elaborate  and  illustrate  the  idea  some- 
what more  fully.  The  self-conscious  social  tradition  is 
made  up  at  any  time  of  various  groups  of  knowledge, 
i.  e.,  phenomena  related  by  generalizations  into  so-called 
sciences.  Each  one  of  these  groups  passes  from  common 
sense   to    rational    and    purposeful    organization.       Each 

1  Blum  :  La  philosophie  des  sciences.  Lalaiide  :  Sur  la  philosophie  des  sci- 
ences. 

2  "  Le  determinisme,  c'est-d-dire  le  fait  que  dans  le  monde  vivant,  comme  dans 
le  monde  mineral,  les  mgmes  causes  produisent  toujours  les  nifimes  effels,  n'a 
rein  i  faire  avec  la  thfiorie  qui  ne  veut  vois  dans  les  fitres  vivants  que  le  rfisultat 
de  la  libre  action  sur  la  matiire  des  forces  ordinaires  de  la  physique  et  de  la 
chimie.  ...  La  vie  est  une  force  qui  se  superpose  4  toutes  les  autres,  y 
compris  I'aflfinit^." — Ed.  Perrier  :  Les  colonies  animales,  quoted  by  Eugene  Blum 
in  his  Lectures  de  philosophie  scientifique ,  p.  546. 

8  Pp.  22,  23. 


5©  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 


grows  from  an  empirical  nucleus,  and  by  means  of  widen- 
ing generalizations  extends  its  area.  Gradually  these 
elementary  groups  are  further  combined  into  larger  bodies 
of  unified  conceptions,  until  at  the  present  day  it  is  pos- 
sible, as  we  have  seen,  to  present  in  a  comparatively 
small  table  a  synoptic  view  of  the  main  divisions  of  human 
knowledge,  notwithstanding  the  marvelous  accumulations 
of  observation  and  experiment.  Yet  between  these  groups 
have  always  existed  gaps  which  had  to  be  filled  by  vari- 
ous anthropomorphic  ideas.  The  progress  of  the  self- 
conscious  social  tradition  has  been  characterized  not  only 
by  the  growth  and  integration  of  the  many  groups  of 
knowledge,  but  also  by  the  gradual  closing  up  of  gaps, 
until  it  would  seem  that  complete  rational  integration  were 
about  to  be  achieved.  Yet,  as  has  been  indicated,  breaks 
still  remain  in  the  ideal  continuity.  Only  some  relation 
of  intimate  dependence  can  be  asserted. 

A  complete  treatment  of  this  process  would  involve 
nothing  short  of  tracing,  as  Whewell  has  done,  the  forma- 
tion of  each  of  these  great  bodies  of  knowledge.  For  the 
{)resent  purpose  it  must  suffice  merely  to  indicate  the 
broad  features  of  the  movement. 

Such  vast  generalizations  as  the  nebular  hypothesis,  the 
theories  of  universal  gravitation,  the  unity  of  matter,  and 
the  conser\'ation  of  energy  have  given  a  coherence  to 
inorganic  phenomena  ;  the  development  theory  has  unified 
a  wide  range  of  organic  sciences  ;  the  phenomena  of  con- 
sciousness are  undergoing  more  methodical  scrutiny  and 
organization,  while  social  life  and  its  products  are  only 
beginning  to  be  the  objects  of  systematic,  reflective  study. 
Embracing  all,  and  provisionally  relating  them  in  un- 
interrupted sequence,  is  the  great  hypothesis  of  universal 
evolution. 

The  scientists  to  whom   each  group  of  the  social  tra- 


Social  Philosophy  as  a  Scientia  Scientiarum.         51 


dition  is  intrusted  are  not  only  engaged  in  elaborating  and 
extending  the  area  of  their  subject,  but  many  are  attempt- 
ing to  relate  it  to  other  divisions  of  knowledge.  Thus 
chemists  and  biologists  seek  to  explain  organic  phenomena, 
psychologists  and  biologists  are  interested  in  the  relations 
of  brain  and  consciousness,'  and  sociologists  seek  more  and 
more  the  aid  of  the  psychologists.  There  is  specializing  in 
these  border  lands  upon  the  problems  of  natural  continuity. 

We  have  seen  that  Comte's  theory  of  the  chronologi- 
cally linear  development  of  the  sciences  in  the  order  of 
their  increasing  complexity  must  be,  if  not  rejected,  at 
least  greatly  modified.  The  sciences  have  advanced  to- 
gether in  relations  of  mutual  dependence,  yet  the  groups 
highest  in  the  scale  have  been  unable  to  make  genuine 
progress  far  in  advance  of  those  below  them.  "All  the 
forces  and  laws  of  the  universe,"  says  Flint,  "so  combine 
and  cooperate  in  the  constitution  and  life  of  man,  that  all 
the  sciences  which  instruct  us  as  to  their  nature  neces- 
sarily help  us  to  understand  why  the  course  of  history  has 
been  what  it  actually  has  been. '"^  By  the  course  of 
history  is  meant  the  concrete  manifestation  of  the  laws  of 
social  evolution  or  progress. 

The  fact  that  within  the  present  century  social  phe- 
nomena have  received  so  much  attention,  i.  e.,  have 
emerged  into  general  consciousness  and  tended  to  become 

1  "This  conference  [American  Psychological  Association,  Philadelphia,  1895] 
between  those  who  look  upon  many  of  the  same  phenomena  from  two  points  of 
view,  the  biological  and  the  psychological,  seems  to  me  significant  and  promising. 
I  think  it  is  one  of  several  indications  that  in  general  the  devotees  of  the  different 
particular  sciences  are  coming  more  clearly  to  recognize  the  community  of  truth 
and  interest  which  makes  them  depend  upon  each  other;  and  that  this  recog- 
nition is  producing  more  of  the  spirit  of  appreciation  and  of  sympathy  among 
them  all.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  day  of  the  mere  specialist  is  waning.  It  may 
reasonably  be  believed  that  the  day  is  dawning  when  a  broad  culture,  a  genial 
attitude,  and  a  firm  grasp  upon  the  verities  of  nature  and  of  life  will  characterize 
the  various  departments  of  human  knowledge."— G.  T.  Ladd,  The  Psychological 
Revieiv,  May,  1896. 

2  The  History  of  the  Philosophy  of  History  (France),  p.  37. 


52  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 


the  basis  for  socially  self-conscious  examination,  delibera- 
tion, and  collective  action,  should  not  lead  us  to  suppose 
that  men  have  only  recently  reflected  upon  social  rela- 
tions. From  the  earliest  beginnings  of  associated  life 
human  experience  has  been  consolidated  in  common 
sense,  in  customs  and  laws  which  were  for  the  most  part 
products  of  social  unconsciousness.  The  ideal  Republic 
of  Plato  and  the  practical  Politics  of  Aristotle  mark  the 
definite  dawn  of  social  self-consciousness  in  its  truest  sense, 
i.  e.,  society's  effort  to  understand  and  explain  itself 
through  individuals  as  organs  of  the  social  mind. '  But  the 
undeveloped  condition  of  the  natural  sciences  and  of  psy- 
chology made  any  general  synthesis  of  knowledge  into 
a  scientific  conception  of  society  quite  impossible.  Here 
was  the  definite  formation  of  a  nucleus  for  the  social 
sciences,  but  many  centuries  of  development  were  needed 
to  extend  the  growth  and  bring  the  group  as  a  whole  into 
organic  relations  with  the  other  contents  of  the  social  mind. 
With  the  advent  of  Christianity,  philosophy  and  theology 
were  united,  or  rather  theology  became  the  dominant  form 
of  philosophy.^  The  natural  sciences,  as  we  have  seen, 
were  neglected,  and  social  interpretation  was  attempted 
only  in  terms  of  divinity  and  ecclesiastical  authority. 
Experience  and  common  sense  continued  their  unconscious 
consolidations  and  transmissions,  but  all  reflective  thought 
about  social  relations,  such  as  St.  Augustine's  De  Civitate 
Dei,  was  unified  by  theological  conceptions. 

While  from  one  point  of  view  this  period  seems  char- 
acterized by  intellectual  stagnation,  from  another  it  is  seen 
to  be  most  significant  for  the  further  development  of 
the  social  mind.     The  Christian  conception  of  the  ideal 

1  Bosanquet :    "The    Relation    of  Sociology    to    Philosophy,"   Mind,  January, 
1897. 

s  De  Greef :  L'  evolution  des  croyances  et  des  doctrines  politique s.  p.  36. 


Social  Philosophy  as  a  Scientia  Scieniiarum.        53 

spiritual  unity  of  the  race,'  the  communicating  system 
which  the  church  established  in  its  hierarchical  organiza- 
tion, the  preservation  and  reproduction  of  manuscripts,  all 
combined  to  stimulate  social  consciousness  and  ultimately 
to  render  possible  a  purposeful  advance. 

St.  Thomas  Aquinas  represented  a  movement  which 
led  eventually  to  the  separation  of  theology  from  meta- 
physics in  scholasticism,"^  and  so  prepared  the  way  for 
scientific  method  based  upon  observation  and  freed  from 
a  priori  conceptions.  In  terms  of  the  development  of  the 
social  mind,  the  compact  and  apparently  final  synthesis  of 
a  theological  philosophy  began  to  yield  to  a  further 
analysis  which  found  expression  in  the  inductive  sciences. 

Comte  asserted  that  while  no  definite  beginning  can  be 
assigned  to  the  positive  mode  of  thought,  it  may  practi- 
cally be  regarded  as  originating  with  Galileo  in  Italy, 
Descartes  in  France,  and  Francis  Bacon  in  England.' 
None  of  these  men  specifically  treated  social  phenomena, 
but  by  insisting  on  experiment  and  induction,  by  rejecting 
authority  as  such  and  appealing  to  reason,  they  laid  the 
foundations  of  scientific  method  which  De  Greef  describes 
as  the  highest  procedure  of  both  the  individual  and  the 
collective  consciousness." 

The  progress  of  the  social  mind  has  since  this  beginning 
been  the  result  less  and  less  of  blind  empiricism,  more  and 
more    consequent    upon    the    elaboration   of    intellectual 

1  Flint  :  loc.  cit.,  p.  62. 

2  De  Greef:  loc.  cit.,  p.  38. 

8  Philosophie positive,  Tome  I.,  p.  15. 

4  "  La  mtthode  est  le  proc€d6  le  plus  €\€\€  de  I'intelligence  individuelle  ;  elle 
est  aussi  sup6rieure  au  simple  raisonnement  que  celui-ci  Test  Si  Taction  r6flexe  ou 
automatique.  Ces  derni^res  sont  ^galement  des  modalitfes  de  I'intelligence 
collective ;  i  dfefaut  de  la  mfthode  positive,  I'instinct,  Taction  rtflexe  et  Tautoma- 
tisme  ont  heureusement,  jusqu'ici,  garanti  la  conservation  et  le  progrfes  des 
agr^gats  sociaux  avec  plus  d'efficacitfi  que  n'eut  pu  le  fairc  la  raison  individuelle 
ou  collective  de  leurs  membres." — Introduction  h  la  sociologie,  lere  Partie,  p.  III. 


54  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

devices  for  observation,  comparison,  and  experiment,  and 
the  purposeful  application  of  them  to  increasing  areas  of 
phenomena. 

The  dependence  of  the  more  complex  sciences  upon  the 
simpler  has  been  illustrated  in  the  changing  conceptions  by 
which  men  have  attempted  to  interpret  the  facts  of  society 
both  in  its  organization  at  a  particular  period  and  in  its 
historical  development.  Bacon  shows  real  insight  into  the 
nature  of  the  mind  when  he  declares  that  "those  things 
which  are  in  themselves  new  can  yet  be  only  understood 
from  some  analogy  to  what  is  old.'"  As  men  have  con- 
sciously pushed  their  way  among  the  bewildering  phenom- 
ena of  social  life,  they  have  of  necessity  taken  with  them, 
as  instruments  of  inquiry  and  explanation,  conceptions 
formulated  in  connection  with  simpler  subjects.  "It  is 
chiefly,"  says  Flint,  "through  the  growth  of  physical 
science  that  the  notion  of  law  in  human  development 
has  arisen,  and  chiefly  through  it  also  that  the  path  which 
leads  to  the  discovery  of  law  has  been  opened  up.  Not 
till  long  after  induction  was  familiar  to  physicists,  not  till 
long  after  Lord  Bacon  had  traced  its  general  theory,  was 
it,  or  could  it  be,  practiced  to  any  considerable  extent  in 
historical  research. ' '  '^ 

It  has  been  pointed  out  that  the  social  mind  grows  by 
analysis  and  synthesis,  and  that  the  two  processes  are  at 
all  times  coexistent,  although  each  act  of  analysis  is  in 
a  general  way  the  cause  of  a  new  synthetic  conception 
expanded  to  include  a  larger  content.  The  different  groups 
of  knowledge  have  been  unified  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously by  various  theories  which  have  successively 
proved  inadequate  to  explain  the  phenomena  and  have 
yielded  to  more  satisfying  conceptions.      Moreover  these 

'i  Novum  Organum  (tr.  by  Dewey),  p.  388. 

*  History  of  the  Philosophy  of  History  (France),  p.  36. 


Social  Philosophy  as  a  Scientia  Scientiarum.         55 

theories  have  been  carried  up  from  the  sciences  lower  in 
the  hierarchic  scale  to  interpret  the  phenomena  of  greater 
complexity  and  by  this  process  the  scientific  groups  have 
little  by  little  been  drawn  closer  together.  From  the  very 
first  man's  daily  life  has  been  the  unity  out  of  which 
the  sciences  have  been  abstracted,  and  to  which  they 
return  with  richer  and  deeper  meaning.  The  effort  of 
social  self-consciousness  has  always  been  to  put  back  these 
abstractions  into  their  relations  in  the  phenomena  of 
society.  All  the  sciences  have  thus  been  constantly 
converging  in  the  focus  of  social  life,  at  first  to  explain 
one  by  one  the  things  that  happen — the  primary  require- 
ment of  the  human  mind — then  gradually  to  show  the  wider 
relations  of  coexistence  and  sequence  which  obtain  between 
these  phenomena,  ultimately  to  display  a  system  within 
which  all  events  assume  methodic  organization. 

A  philosophy  of  life  has  existed  from  the  very  origin 
of  human  association.  This  philosophy  of  life  has  under- 
gone continuous  growth,  adjusting  itself  constantly  to  in- 
creasing knowledge,  widening  to  include  larger  and  more 
definite  views  of  nature  and  man,  becoming  more  and  more 
a  product  of  social  self-consciousness.  The  philosophy  of 
life  has  been  dominated  by  several  conceptions,  yet  at 
every  stage  it  has  undertaken  to  account  for  all  phenom- 
ena. The  theology  of  the  medieval  church  furnished  a 
philosophy  of  life  and  of  society  to  which  all  that  happened 
could  be  readily  related.  Certain  scientific  notions  and 
empirical  forms  of  knowledge  furnished  nuclei  of  phenom- 
ena clearly  related  by  natural  causation.  All  other  appear- 
ances or  events  were  explained  as  the  results  of  divine 
interposition,  always,  however,  with  a  view  to  human 
welfare  or  punishment.  Everything  that  happened  was 
easily  connected  with  a  philosophy  of  social  life,  for,  in 
spite  of  the  emphasis  laid  upon  tiie  individual's  relation  to 


56  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

God  and  a  future  life,  society  was  at  least  a  means  to 
the  chief  end. 

From  one  point  of  view  Comte  was  right  when  he  said 
that  the  positive  philosophy  would  show  God  over  the 
frontier,  but  it  was  the  medieval  conception  of  God  which 
was  gradually  to  disappear  from  the  social  mind,  as  the 
area  of  causal  continuity  enlarged. 

The  great  advances  of  physical  and  astronomical  science 
during  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries'  effected 
marvelous  integrations  of  knowledge  and  exalted  mechani- 
cal conceptions  which  were  carried  up  the  scale  of  phenom- 
ena to  explain  and  interpret  the  facts  of  life,  conscious- 
ness, and  society.  Leibnitz  conceived  of  organisms  as 
machines.  La  Mettrie's  volume  on  U  homnie  inachine  rep- 
resented the  extreme  to  which  this  interpretation  could  be 
carried.*  Herbart's  mechanical  psychology  was  a  result  of 
this  mathematico-physical  movement.  History  or  the 
course  of  social  development  was  ascribed  wholly  to 
mechanical  laws,  resulting  in  what  De  Greef  describes 
as  a  Mechaniqiie  sociale.  ^  In  this  theory  we  have  an  appar- 
ently complete  synthesis.  All  bodies  of  knowledge  seem 
to  be  brought  into  close  relations  of  causal  continuity,  and 
social  philosophy  in  which  all  find  their  expression  becomes 
a  "science  of  the  sciences."  The  physical  basis  of  society, 
the  thoughts  and  acts  of  men,  all  are  combined  in  a  system 
of  mechanical  dependence  and  mutual  interaction.  Every 
phenomenon  can  apparently  be  fitted  into  the  scheme.  All 
supernatural  agencies  may  be  dispensed  with,  and  a  La- 
place can  say:   "God!  I  have  no  need  of  that  hypothesis."* 

But  for  how  brief  a  time  this  synthesis  served  its  pur- 

1  Ro>-ce :  The  Spirit  of  Modem  Philosophy ,  pp.  3S-40. 

2  De  Greef:  Le  transformisme  social,  p.  146.     Cf.  L'homme  machine  (Ed.  Ass6- 
zat). 

*  Loc.  cit.,  p.  146. 

<  VV.  W.  R.  Ball :  A  Short  Account  of  the  History  of  Mathematics,  p.  423. 


Social  Philosophy  as  a  Scientia  Scientiarum.        57 

pose  !  The  social  mind  through  the  agency  of  Cuvier, 
Bichat,  Von  Baer,  Lamarck,  and  others  was  consciously  at 
work  upon  the  phenomena  of  life. '  The  knowledge  which 
resulted  could  not  be  fitted  into  the  mechanical  theory  of 
nature  and  man.  It  gradually  gave  way  to  the  conception 
of  growth  as  the  biological  sciences  were  developed  and  or- 
ganized under  general  vital  principles.  Comte,  as  we  have 
seen,  carried  the  biological  notion  almost  directly  over  into 
social  phenomena.  It  dominates  all  modern  thought. 
"There  are  certainly  few  points,"  says  Mackenzie,  "on 
which  thinking  men  in  modern  times  are  more  thoroughly 
at  one  than  in  the  recognition  that  everything  that  is  deep- 
est in  nature — and  especially  in  human  nature — must  be 
regarded  as  a  product  not  of  manufacture  but  of  growth.'"^ 

It  is  unquestionably  true  that  this  organic  idea  had  been 
vaguely  and  unconsciously  entertained  for  many  centuries, 
had  gained  in  clearness  during  social  progress,  but  it 
reached  precise  and  systematic  definition  only  with  the 
formation  of  the  sciences  of  life.  It  is  necessary  to  dis- 
criminate constantly  between  empirical  common  knowledge 
and  "the  reasoned  knowledge  which  is  science."^ 

While,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  quite  impossible  for  groups 
of  scientific  conceptions  to  develop  in  actual  isolation,  yet 
the  connections  between  the  sciences  are  less  obvious  in 
the  earlier  stages  of  their  development.  Thus,  thought 
about  social  phenomena,  although  influenced  and  rendered 
more  precise  by  conceptions  derived  from  physics  and 
biology,  had  attained  considerable  proportions  before  these 
notions  were  systematically  applied.  Vico  the  Italian 
is  usually  credited  with  one  of  the  first  conscious  attempts 
to  formulate  a  law  of  social  development,  which  he  declared 

1  De  Greef :  L' evolution  des  croyances  et  des  doctrines  politique!,  p.  66. 

t  I.OC.  cit.,  p.  127. 

3  Giddings  :   The  Principles  0/ Sociology,  p.  12. 


58  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

to  be  an  endlessly  cyclical  movement  through  three  stages, 
divine,  heroic,  human.'  Vico's  theory  rested  neither  on  a 
theological  conception  nor  upon  any  metaphysical  formula 
derived,  for  example,  from  a  notion  of  natural,  preestab- 
lished  rights.  His  doctrine  was  based  upon  observation, 
highly  generalized  to  be  sure,  but  always  subject  to  correc- 
tion by  the  same  means.'  Vico  stands  clearly  for  law  and 
development  in  human  affairs — although  the  connections 
of  social  with  other  phenomena  are  not  definitely  demon- 
strated. 

Montesquieu  elaborated  the  idea  of  social  law  and  em- 
phasized the  continuity  and  dependence  of  phenomena  by 
showing  the  influence  of  natural  conditions  on  social  organ- 
ization.'  He  was  the  first  philosopher  to  call  attention  to 
the  social  significance  of  the  economic  forces  which  Ques- 
nay  and  the  physiocrats  were  beginning  consciously  to 
study.  *'  This  differentiation  of  social  phenomena  themselves 
is  worthy  of  remark.  The  work  of  purposeful  analysis 
begun  by  Aristotle,  and  carried  on  in  political  thought  at 
least  by  Machiavelli, '  Hobbes,*  Locke,"  Spinoza,  and  many 
others,  implied  a  further  division  of  the  social  tradition  and 
created  a  demand  for  a  still  more  comprehensive  synthesis. 

1  Flint :   Vico,  p.  213  sq. 

*  De  Greef :  L'evolution  des  croyances  el  des  doctrines politiques,  p.  59. 

3  Montesquieu  thus  enumerates  the  factors  to  which  laws  must  be  adjusted : 
"  They  should  be  relative  to  the  climate  of  each  country,  to  the  quality  of  its  soil, 
to  its  situation  and  extent,  to  the  principal  occupation  of  its  natives,  whether 
husbandmen,  huntsmen,  or  shepherds  ;  they  should  have  a  relation  to  the  degree 
of  liberty  which  the  constitution  will  bear;  to  the  religion  of  the  inhabitants,  to 
their  inclinations,  riches,  numbers,  commerce,  manners,  and  customs." — L'esprit 
les  lots  (tr.  by  Nugent),  Vol.  I.,  p.  7. 

*  The  following  sentence  is  characteristic  of  the  physiocrats:  "  Le  premier 
grain  de  b\€,  confi6  a  la  terre  devient  le  germe  assurS  des  empires  ;  ils  en  r^sultent 
aussi  nccessairement  que  les  6pis  que  ce  grain  de  bl6  fait  Sclore." — Dupont  de 
Nemours:  Physiocrates  (Ed.  Daire),  p.  26. 

«  The  Prince  (Morley's  Lib.),  pp.  6S-6g,  152-158,  297-299. 

6  LeviaUian  (Molesworth  Ed.),  Vol  III.,  Part  II.,  Chaps.  XVII.  and  XVIII. 

'  Political  Treatise :  Works  (tr.  by  Elwe),  p.  278  sq.,  pp.  301-30S. 


Social  Philosophy  as  a  Scientia  Scientiarum.         59 

Among  the  economists  Turgot  was  conspicuous  both  for 
his  special  studies  and  for  his  wider  generalization  of  social 
progress.  According  to  Flint,  Turgot' s  great  service  was 
' '  that  he  definitely  showed  history  to  be  no  mere  aggregate 
of  names,  dates,  and  deeds  brought  together  and  deter- 
mined either  accidentally  or  externally,  but  an  organic 
whole  with  an  internal  plan  progressively  realized  by  inter- 
nal forces.'"  Turgot  recognized  also  that  progress  involves 
the  coordination  of  all  the  elements  of  human  welfare, 
economic,  social,  intellectual,  and  ethical,  and  fore- 
shadowed at  least  the  idea  that  while  social  phenomena 
may  be  abstracted  into  special  pursuits,  they  must  be  syn- 
thesized again  to  represent  reality.  Adam  Smith  was 
hardly  less  a  moralist  than  an  economist.  He  published 
his  Theory  of  Moral  Sentimeyits  seventeen  years  before  his 
Wealth  of  Nations  and  recognized  that  ethical  and  eco- 
nomic problems  are  inseparably  connected.*  Bentham 
sought  to  rationalize  morality  and  relate  it  to  economic  and 
political  ideas,  a  task  which  John  Stuart  Mill  carried  on 
upon  a  higher  plane.' 

Thus  we  see  social  self-consciousness  at  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  century  engaged  upon  three  converging 
problems  : 

I.  The  sciences  were  being  gradually  arranged  in  an 
order  of  natural  dependence. 

1  Flint :     The  History  of  the  Philosophy  of  History  (France),  p.  283. 

Turgot's  position  is  suggested  in  the  following  passage  from  his  essay  on 
"  Geographic  politique  ":  "  La  gfeographie  consid6r6e  par  rapport  aux  diff6rents 
gouvernements,  aux  difffirents  caract^res  des  peuples,  i  leur  g6nie,  i  Icur  valeur, 
d  leur  Industrie ;  sfiparer  ce  qui  appartient  li-dedans  aux  causes  morales ;  ex- 
aminer si  les  causes  physiques  y  ont  part,  et  comment." — CEuvres  de  Turgot  (Ed. 
Daire),  Tome  II.,  p.  612. 

*  Dr.  August  Oncken  in  his  volume  Adam  Smith  und  Immanurl  Kant  asserts  in 
Buch  I.,  entitled  "  Der  'Wealth  of  Nations'  kein  selbstandiges  Werk,"  that 
Smith  really  presented  a  complete  system  of  practical  or  moral  philosophy,  in- 
cluding ethics,  politics,  and  economics,  the  first  contained  in  the  Thfoiy  of  Moral 
Sentiments,  the  second  and  third  iti  the  Wealth  of  A'ations,  S.  11-16. 

8  Dissertations  and  Discussions,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  315-316,  and  Logic,  p.  5S3. 


6o  The  Social  Afind  and  Education. 

2.  The  phenomena  of  life  were  being  examined  and 
generahzcd. 

3.  Social  phenomena  were  undergoing  differentiation 
and  the  conceptions  of  interdependence  and  of  growth 
according  to  law  were  being  applied  to  them. 

Such  were  the  materials  of  analysis  ready  for  a  new  syn- 
thesis. Comte  made  the  first  attempt  and  succeeded  in 
establishing  in  principle  if  not  in  detail  his  hierarchy,  and 
in  exhibiting  the  sciences  in  their  relations  as  a  whole,  an 
organized  body  of  knowledge.  ' '  The  presentation  of 
scientific  knowledge  and  method  as  a  whole,"  comments 
Fiske,  "whether  rightly  or  wrongly  coordinated,  cannot 
have  failed  greatly  to  widen  the  conceptions  of  most  of  his 
readers.  And  he  has  done  especial  service  by  familiarizing 
men  with  the  idea  of  a  social  science  based  on  the  other 
sciences."'  Comte' s  philosophy  of  the  sciences  was  prima- 
rily a  social  philosophy  ;  all  groups  of  knowledge  were 
subordinated  to  a  conception  of  society  as  a  whole.  But, 
as  we  have  seen,  Comte  failed  to  include  anything  like  an 
adequate  psychology  in  his  scheme,  which  had,  therefore, 
a  false  completeness. 

The  work  of  the  naturalists  began  to  show  results  in  the 
theories  of  Von  Baer,  Goethe,  Treviranus,  and  Lamarck, 
which  were  already  being  applied  to  social  phenomena 
when  Darwin's  Origin  of  Species  offered  a  wide  generaliza- 
tion of  organic  life. 

With  these  conceptions  at  his  command,"  Spencer  under- 
took his  great  work  of  synthesis,  and  eventually  announced 
his  well-known  formula  of  universal  evolution.  The  chief 
product  of  this  whole  developing  process  is  the  social  life 
of  men.     Society  itself  is  an  organism  growing,  differen- 

1  Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy,  Vol.  I.,  p.  227. 

2  This  is  not  to  imply  that  Spencer  had  not  worked  out  the  general  theor>-  before 
Darwin's  volumes  were  published.  See  introduction  to  the  fourth  edition  of 
J^irst  Principles. 


Social  Philosophy  as  a  Scientia  Scientiarutn.         6i 

tiating,  adjusting  itself  to  its  environment.  And  society  can 
be  understood  only  as  a  product  of  all  the  forces  with 
which  the  various  sciences  concern  themselves.  While  it 
is  true  that  Spencer's  philosophy  is  in  its  broadest  range  a 
cosmic  philosophy,  yet  in  so  far  as  it  unifies  organized 
knowledge  of  nature,  mind,  and  human  association  it  is  a 
social  philosophy  and  as  such  a  science  of  the  sciences. 

The  biological  concept,  the  idea  of  organism,  the  theory 
of  adjustment  to  environment,  and  the  transmission  of 
acquired  characters  were  quickly  applied  by  social  philoso- 
phers to  the  phenomena  of  associated  life  and  were  found 
far  more  satisfactory  than  mechanical  analogies.  Nor  were 
psychical  phenomena  neglected.  Lilienfeld'  and  Schafifle,* 
who  adopted  the  biological  theory,  gave  prominence  to  the 
cerebral  side  of  the  analogy,  and  Spencer  in  his  system  of 
philosophy  gave  a  most  important  place  to  psychology. 
Yet  in  spite  of  these  definite  efforts,  the  stress  was  almost 
unconsciously  laid  by  Spencer  in  actual  interpretation  upon 
the  physical  and  vital  factors  of  social  organization  and 
progress.  De  Greef  charges  Spencer  with  making  sociol- 
ogy only  an  extension  of  biology.^  The  first  biological 
synthesis  was  far  richer  and  truer  than  the  mechanical,  but 
it  is  now  yielding  to  another  which  shall  include  more  con- 
sciously still  another  element  of  analysis — the  psychical. 

This  century  has  witnessed  an  advance  in  the  knowledge 
of  mind  quite  as  remarkable  as  the  earlier  progress  of  bio- 
logical science.  Herbart,  Lotze,  Fechner,  Wundt,  are 
associated  with  the  beginning  of  a  movement  which  is  sys- 
tematically reexamining  the  facts  of  consciousness  and 
attempting  to  relate  them  as  closely  as  may  be  to  the  struc- 

1  Gedanken  iiber  die  Socialwissenschaft  dfr  Zukunst,  Bd.  I.,  S.   171-234,   Bd.  II., 
Kap.  IV.,  Bd  III.,  Kap.  II.,  VIII.,  and  X. 

s  Batt  und  Leben  des  socialen  Kbrpers,  Bd.  I.,  S.  392-430,  703-730,  Bd.  IV.,  S.  1-70. 

8  Introduction  h  la  sociologie,  lere  Partte,  pp.  16-25. 


62  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

ture  and  functions  of  the  brain.  As  a  result,  these  re- 
searches and  preliminary  generalizations  seek  a  place  in  a 
synthesis  of  the  sciences,  and  just  now  psychological  con- 
cepts tend  to  dominate  social  philosophy.  Tarde  gives  a 
somewhat  extreme  expression  to  this  tendency  when  he 
says : 

"  Ce  n'est  pas  ^  un  organisme  que  resemble  un  soci^t^,  et 
qu'elle  tend  h.  resembler  de  plus  en  plus  \  mesure  qu'elle  se  civil- 
ise ;  c'est  bien  plutot  ^  cet  organe  singulier  qui  se  nomme  un  cer- 
veau.  ...  La  soci^t^  est  en  somme,  ou  deviant  chaque  jour, 
uniquement  un  grand  cerveau  collective  dont  les  petits  cerveaux 
individuals  sent  les  cellules.  On  voit  combien,  ^  ce  point  de  vue, 
I'equivalent  social  du  moi,  que  les  sociologistes  contemporaines, 
trop  pr^occup^s  de  biologie,  et  pas  assez  peut-etre  de  psychologie, 
ont  vainement  cherch^,  ce  present  aisement  et  du  lui-meme."' 

Yet  on  the  same  page  Tarde  speaks  of  the  beings  and 
things  which  support  the  social  brain  as  "en  quelque  sorte 
les  visceres  et  les  membres,"  and  remarks  that  in  a  society 
dominated  by  caste,  the  servile  and  plebeian  groups  '  'peu- 
vent  etre  appelees  avec  quelque  verite  I'estomac  des  patri- 
ciens. "  Thus  the  psychological  social  philosophy  does  not 
reject  or  ignore  any  of  the  sciences  ;  it  includes  them  all 
and  adds  psychical  factors  to  the  synthesis.  It  is  still  a 
"science  of  the  sciences." 

The  contributions  of  Lilienfeld  and  Schiiflfle  have  been 
supplemented  by  Ward,  De  Greef,  Durkheim,  Tarde,  Fou- 
illee,^  Giddings,  Small,  and  others,  all  of  whom  recognize 
ideas  and  volitions  as  factors  in  social  progress.  Thus  the 
provisional  synthesis  of  the  present  includes  not  only  the 
physical  objective  interpretation  of  society  but  the  psychi- 
cal and  subjective  explanation  as  well.  ^  It  is  the  largest 
unity  which  has  been  as  yet  achieved.      It  affords  a  view  of 

1  La  logigue  sociale,  p.  127. 

2  Psychohgie  des  idees-forces  and  La  science  sociale  contemporaine. 
s  Giddings  :  loc.  cit. ,  p.  10. 


Social  Philosophy  as  a  Scientia  Scientiarum.        63 

society  as  the  highest  organization  of  physical  and  psychi- 
cal forces  in  relations  of  either  causal  continuity  or  intimate 
interdependence  ;  the  whole  system  constantly  growing  or 
readjusting  itself  in  adaptation  to  the  requirements  not  only 
of  nature  but  of  the  will  of  man.  Such  a  philosophy  of 
society  cannot  neglect  any  element  of  human  knowledge,  it 
demands  as  its  materials  the  sciences  of  all  phenomena, 
physical,  vital,  psychical,  and  social  ;  it  may  rightfully 
claim  to  be  the  science  of  the  sciences.  Mackenzie,  from  a 
somewhat  different  point  of  view,  remarks  :  ' '  Hence  the 
science  which  deals  with  social  welfare  may  always  be 
regarded  as  a  master  science  in  human  studies,  not  indeed 
in  the  sense  that,  like  logic,  it  regulates  their  principles, 
but  in  the  sense  that  it  determines  their  worth.  It  is  worth 
while  to  know  social  philosophy,  because  until  we  know 
that,  we  do  not  know  what  else  it  is  worth  while  to 
know.'"  In  other  words,  until  the  sciences  have  been 
organized  into  a  conception  of  social  life  they  have  no  real 
significance,  they  remain  abstractions  out  of  relation  to 
reality.  * 

Once  more  it  should  be  stated  that  it  is  not  a  question  as 
to  whether  there  can  be  or  ought  to  be  a  social  philosophy. 
There  always  has  been  and  must  be  a  philosophy  of  social 
life — a  way  of  conceiving  the  nature  and  end  of  society. 
This  philosophy  has  constantly  readjusted  itself  to  the 
growth  of  knowledge,  admitting  new  truth,  rejecting  false 
theories,  or  combining  and  reconciling  new  with  old.  It 
has  generalized  men's  knowledge  about  nature  and  about 
themselves.  The  difference  has  been  in  degree  of  definite- 
ness  and  consciousness,  not  in  the  kind  of  mental  effort. 

1  Loc.  cit.,  p.  6. 

2  In  the  development  of  this  subject  the  term  sociology  has  not  been  technically 
employed,  because  it  is  altogether  probable  that  as  a  more  definite  discipline  its 
application  may  be  limited  to  a  narrower  field  than  that  which  a  social  philosophy 
must  survey. 


64  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

But  may  we  speak  of  a  social  philosophy  as  thouj^h  there 
were  one?  Are  tliere  not  many  coexistent  philosophies — 
naturalistic,  idealistic,  and  the  like?  In  hs/orm  social  phi- 
losophy is  one,  i.  c,  it  coordinates  and  generalizes  men's 
reasoned  knowledge  of  all  the  phenomena  of  associated 
life.  In  its  content  social  philosophy  varies  with  the  kind  of 
knowledge  consciously  emphasized.  Thus  if  self-conscious 
effort  be  expended  almost  exclusively  upon  physical  and 
vital  phenomena  and  psychical  phenomena  be  uncon- 
sciously neglected,  the  resulting  philosophy  will  be  none 
the  less  a  generalization  of  all  the  recognized  sciences — 
purposefully  systematized  groups  of  knowledge — but  it  will 
have  a  naturalistic,  material  content.  Such  was  the  physi- 
ocratic  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  the  histor- 
ical theory  of  Buckle.  On  the  other  hand,  when  attention 
is  concentrated  upon  subjective  phenomena  to  the  neglect  of 
the  objective  world,  social  philosophy  becomes  idealistic,  as 
in  Hegel's  Philosophy  of  History. 

But,  as  we  have  seen,  the  present  self-conscious  effort  of 
the  social  mind  is  first  to  examine  and  reflect  upon  all 
phenomena,  objective  and  subjective,  and  second  to  com- 
bine the  resulting  generalizations  into  a  philosophy  which 
shall  attempt  "  to  account  for  the  origin,  growth,  structure, 
and  activities  of  society  by  the  operation  of  physical,  vital, 
and  psychical  causes  working  together  in  a  process  of  evo- 
lution.'" It  is  only  when  we  regard  the  highest  effort  of 
self-consciousness  as  truly  representative  of  the  social  mind 
that  we  can  speak  of  one  social  philosophy.  There  are 
philosophies  corresponding  to  varying  degrees  of  purpose- 
ful reflection  all  the  way  down  to  the  socially  unconscious 
superstitions  of  the  savages. 

"Unsociet6,"  says  De  Greef,  "n'est  pas  seulement  un 
association  de  cerveaux,   mais  de  corps  dependants  eux- 

1  Giddings  :  loc.  cit.,  p.  8. 


Social  Philosophy  as  a  Scientia  Scientiarum.        65 

memes  de  la  nature  ambiante ;  un  societe  ce  n'est  pas 
seulement  une  Academic,  mais  un  partie  de  F  minivers  or- 
ganisee  en  societe. ' ' ' 

Such  is  the  subject  matter  for  social  philosophy  which 
aims  to  afford  a  view  of  associated  life  by  generalizing  into 
a  coherent  conception  the  sciences  which  have  been  differ- 
entiated from  the  experiences  of  men,  to  recombine  into 
reality  the  subjective  abstractions  of  the  social  mind,  to 
serve,  in  other  words,  as  a  science  of  the  sciences. 

1  Le  trans/ormtsme  social,  p.  276. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE      DEVELOPMENT     OF     SOCIAL     AND     OF     INDIVIDUAL 
THOUGHT. 

We  have  seen  that  the  social  tradition  is  made  up 
at  any  given  time  of  knowledge  of  details  which  in  its 
systematized  and  reflective  stage  becomes  science,  and 
of  theories  of  the  whole  which  may  be  called  philosophy. 
The  primary  task  of  a  philosophy — whatever  may  be  its 
further  and  ultimate  problems — is  to  offer  a  theory  of 
every-day  human  experience,  a  conception  of  the  nature  of 
social  life.  The  growth  of  social  knowledge  consists,  on 
the  one  hand,  in  the  elaboration  and  extension  of  the 
sciences,  on  the  other,  in  the  widening  and  reorganizing  of 
philosophy  to  include  and  harmonize  new  and  broader 
generalizations.'  The  form  of  this  process  is  in  the  main 
constant,  but  the  content  is  ever  changing,  becoming  not 
only  richer  but  more  definite  and  more  purposefully  coor- 
dinated.^ 

Let  us  next  inquire  whether  the  process  by  which  social 
knowledge  has  been  developed  has  any  meaning  for  the 
student  of  mental  growth  in  the  individual  ;  in  other  words, 
let  us  examine  the  time-honored  theory  that  there  is  a 

1  "  Le  progr&s  de  la  pens^e  consiste  dans  le  progrds  simultanS  de  I'observation 
devenue  comparative  et  d' interpretations  que  se  font  de  plus  en  pluslarges." — 
M.  Bem&s  :  Revue philosophique ,  Tome  XX.,  p.  374. 

2  De  Greef  states  the  idea  in  these  words:  "  Les  croyances,  c'est-d-dire  la 
pens^e  collective,  ont  pour  point  de  depart  et  comme  caract^re  commun  d'Stre  des 
reflexes  qui,  plus  ou  moins  compliqu^s,  centralists  et  coordonn^s,  en  arrivent  i 
s'^Iever  jusqu'J  6tre  des  doctrines    et  des  theories  scientifiques." — Le  irans- 

fomiisme  social,  p.  5. 

66 


Development  of  Social  and  Individual  Thotight.      67 

parallel  between  the  development  of  the  race  and  that  of 
the  individual. 

As  a  preliminary  to  this  discussion,  it  may  be  well 
to  revert  once  more  to  the  term  "  social  mind,"  which  has 
been  so  frequently  employed  hitherto.  Its  usefulness  as  a 
working  idea  has,  it  is  hoped,  grown  steadily  more  appar- 
ent. It  describes  briefly  phenomena  which  in  the  absence 
of  such  a  phrase  would  demand  detailed  and  prolix  state- 
ment. It  serves  the  purpose  for  which  all  terms  are 
devised.  Yet  if  its  connotation  be  vague  or  metaphorical 
it  will  cloud  rather  than  clarify  the  argument.  The  term 
' '  social  mind  ' '  has  been  used  to  describe  reality,  i.  e. ,  the 
phenomena  which  result  from  the  interaction  of  communi- 
cating individual  minds.  The  German  school  of  folk- 
psychologists,  founded  by  Lazarus  and  Steinthal,  have  done 
much  to  lay  the  phrase  "social  mind"  open  to  suspicion. 
In  asserting  that  folk-psychology  deals  with  the  mind  of 
the  whole  community  which  is  different  from  all  the  differ- 
ent minds  which  belong  to  it,  and  which  sways  them  all, ' 
they  may  be  simply  using  a  figure,  but  from  the  common- 
sense  point  of  view  this  seems  very  much  like  postulating 
a  ' '  social  brain  ' '  and  asserting  the  existence  of  thought 
apart  from  individual  consciousness.  Bluntschli  in  describ- 
ing the  state  as  a  masculine  personality  has  contributed 
certain  elements  to  the  mystical  interpretation  of  social  re- 
lations,'^  while  Espinas  in  his  studies  of  animal  societies 
reaches  conclusions  which  Fouillee  regards  as  almost  equally 
metaphysical.^  Even  Le  Bon,  one  of  the  modern  school 
of  sociologists,  does  not  altogether  escape  the  suspicion  of 
being  a  mystic  or  at  least  of  pressing  analogies  too  far.  ■* 

1  Zeitschrift fur  Vblkerpsychologie ,  Bd.  I.,  S.  5. 

2  The  Theory  of  the  State  (Eng.  tr.).  P-  23. 

8  Fouillfe  :  La  science  sociale  contemporaine ,  pp.  211,  236-246. 
<  For  example,  Le  Bon  speaks  of  "  une  ftnie  collective"  and  declares  that  a 
crowd  forms  "  un  seul  6tre." — Psychologie  desfoiiles,  p.  12. 


68  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

Against  these  forms  of  ontology  there  will  always  be 
vigorous  protests. 

"All  psychical  processes  [declares  Professor  Paul]  come  to 
their  fiiiriUment  in  individual  minds,  and  nowhere  else.  Neither 
the  popular  mind,  nor  elements  of  it,  such  as  art,  religion,  etc., 
have  any  concrete  existence,  and  therefore  nothing  can  come  to 
pass  in  them  or  between  them.  Away,  then,  with  these  abstrac- 
tions !  For  '  away  with  all  abstractions  '  must  be  our  last  word  if 
we  wish  to  attempt  in  any  place  to  define  the  factors  of  that  which 
actually  happens." ' 

The  term,  then,  is  to  be  defended  only  when  it  is  used  to 
describe  concrete  reality.  Professor  Tufts  has  suggested 
the  use  of  the  word  "  person  "  in  social  interpretation,  not 
as  a  mere  figure  but  as  a  suggestive  analogy.  ' '  Personal- 
ity, regarded  as  the  purposive,  interrelated,  and  unified  ac- 
tivity of  various  desires,  may  thus  be  of  all  grades, 
according  to  the  degree  to  which  impulses  have  passed 
into  conscious  desires,  and  desires  in  turn  have  become 
systematized  into  unity  of  steadfast  purpose."  Wundt  is 
quoted  as  asserting  that  the  social  person  is  as  real  as  the 
individual  person." 

It  is  in  just  this  sense  that  we  assert  the  reality  of  the 
"  social  mind,"  which  on  its  cognitive  side  describes  the  or- 
ganization of  men's  ideas  into  systematic  unity — through  the 
sole  instrumentality.,  however.,  of  individual  viiiids.  ' '  Social 
consciousness,"  or  "social  self-consciousness,"  is  used  in 
the  same  way.  Consciousness  is  implied  in  knowledge  and 
extends  its  area  with  the  latter.  Social  consciousness  is 
simply  consciousness  of  the  same  thought  or  feeling  on 
the  part  of  communicating  individuals,  while  social  self- 
consciousness  implies  a  further  element  of  purposive  co- 
operation between  such  individuals  toward  a  more  or  less 

1  Principles  of  the  History  of  Language  (tr.  by  Strong),  p.  xxxiv. 

2"  Recent  Sociological  Tendencies  in  France,"  American  Journal  of  Sociology, 
Januan.'.  1S96. 


Development  of  Social  and  Individual  Thought.      69 

definite  end.  It  is  this  common  purpose  which,  becoming 
clearer  and  more  definite  in  the  consciousness  of  indi- 
viduals, draws  them  together  into  a  closer  social  unity.' 
The  process  may  be  described  in  terms  of  personality, 
collective  mind,  and  the  like,  but  these  notions  are  em- 
ployed only  as  tools  of  thought,  as  clues  in  interpretation. 
They  have  no  mystical  meaning  ;  they  describe  actual 
phenomena  which  offer  obstacles  to  systematic  organiza- 
tion with  other  knowledge  until  they  are  symbolized  in 
convenient  terms.  In  every  case  where  these  phrases  are 
used,  some  periphrasis  in  common  language  should  be  a 
possible  substitute.  If  they  will  not  stand  this  test  they 
must  be  regarded  as  mere  devices  of  logical  jugglery. 

So  much  of  restatement  seems  a  necessary  preparation 
for  the  next  stage  of  the  discussion.  In  comparing  the 
social  and  the  individual  mind,  it  is  of  fundamental  im- 
portance that  we  have  a  clear  notion  of  what  we  mean — 
and  what  we  do  not  mean — by  the  former. 

The  idea  that  the  individual  passes  in  some  sort  through 
the  same  stages  as  the  race,  or  that  humanity  has  experi- 
enced periods  of  development  corresponding  roughly  to 
the  different  ages  of  the  individual,  is  one  of  those  concep- 
tions which  may  be  traced  back  into  the  history  of  thought 
until  it  gradually  fades  away  altogether.  Or,  from  the 
other  point  of  view,  it  is  an  idea  which  has  developed  from 
a  vague  and  socially  unconscious  figure  into  a  definitely 
elaborated  scientific  theory. 

The  unconscious  notion  is  implied  in  such  phrases  as  the 
"childhood  of  the  race,"  and  it  may  be  traced  throughout 
literature  under  many  different  forms.       One  of  the  earliest 

1  "Ainsi,  quelle  que  soil  la  soci6t6  que  nous  considfirons,  toute  aspiration  col- 
lective qui,  en  se  r^alisant,  aurait  pour  rf-sultat  de  consolider  le  groupe,  de  le 
faire  i  la  fois  plus  complexe,  plus  plastique,  plus  conscient  de  lui-m^me  sera  une 
cause  de  progrSs  pour  le  groupe,  et  par  suite  dfji  une  force  sociale  effective." — M. 
BernSs  :  Revue  de  metaphysique  et  de  morale.  Tome  III.,  p.  172. 


yo  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

clear  statements  of  this  doctrine  is  found  in  the  Paida- 
gogos  of  Clement  of  Alexandria,  in  which  he  defends  the 
teaching  of  Greek  on  the  ground  that  since  God  conducted 
the  race  from  Judaism  through  Greek  culture  to  Christian- 
ity, the  individual  should  be  led  through  the  same  stages  of 
education.  The  philosophers  of  history  naturally  made 
more  or  less  use  of  this  theory.  Herder  saw  in  humanity 
a  great  individual  which  passes  through  its  several  ages 
from  infancy  in  the  orient,  boyhood  in  Egypt,  youth  in 
Greece,  manhood  in  Rome,  to  old  age  in  the  Christian 
world."  Hegel's  similar  division  is  familiar.'^  Lessing  as- 
serted that  every  individual  must  traverse  the  same  course 
as  that  by  which  the  race  attains  its  perfection. 

Goethe,  who  was  among  the  first  to  gain  clearer  ideas  of 
development,  said  :  ' '  The  youth  must  always  begin  again 
at  the  beginning,  and  as  an  individual  make  his  way 
through  the  epochs  of  the  world's  civilization,"^  while 
Kant  raised  the  question  whether  individual  education 
should  follow  the  development  of  mankind  in  general 
through  its  different  generations.'' 

It  would  be  idle  to  multiply  illustrations  of  this  general 
nature.  They  have  been  zealously  ferreted  out  by  the 
Herbartians  of  Germany,  especially  by  those  of  the  Ziller 
school. 

With  Comte  the  theory  gained  in  definiteness  because  of 
his  method  of  checking  inductive  generalizations  of  history 
by  deductive  reasoning  from  the  principles  of  human 
nature.  Having  established  his  ' '  three  stages  ' '  by  the 
historical  method  he  sought  to  verify  his  hypothesis  by  ap- 
pealing   to    the    facts   of    individual    development.       He 

1  Ideas  for  the  Philosophy  of  the  Histoty  of  Mankind. 
-  The  Philosophy  of  Histoty  (tr.  by  Sibree),  p.  in. 

•  Quoted  by  Rein,  Pickel,  and  Scheller:  Das  Erste  Schuljahr .  S.  i6. 

*  Pddagogik,  Werke  heraus.  von  Hartenstein,  Vol.  VIII.,  S.  462. 


Development  of  Social  and  Individual  Thought.      7 1 

declares  that  every  mature  person  if  he  looks  back  upon 
his  own  history  is  aware  that  he  was  a  theologian  in  his 
childhood,  a  metaphysician  in  his  youth,  and  a  natural  phi- 
losopher in  his  manhood. '  Here  is  a  definite  assertion  on 
historical  and  psychological  grounds  of  the  parallelism  be- 
tween the  development  of  race  and  of  individual  thought. 
The  theory  as  presented  by  Comte,  although  possibly  vul- 
nerable from  both  points  of  view,  marked  an  advance  in 
definiteness  and  clearness.  To  educational  philosophers 
the  analogy  is  naturally  suggestive.  Rousseau  recognized 
it  in  a  very  general  way  in  the  Emile,'  and  more  specifi- 
cally in  one  of  his  shorter,  less  famous  essays. '  Pestalozzi 
expressed  the  thought  somewhat  vaguely  in  his  best  known 
work,  Wie  Gertrud  ihre  Kinder  lehrt.  He  makes  much  of 
a  natural  order  of  development  in  the  child,  to  which 
the  curriculum  must  be  carefully  adjusted.*  The  idea  is  at 
least  hinted  at  in  this  statement  of  the  problem  :  "  How  to 
find  a  common  origin  of  all  methods  and  arts  of  instruc- 
tion, and  with  it  a  form  by  which  the  development  of  our 
race  might  be  decided  through  the  essence  of  our  own  very 
nature."'  It  is,  however,  in  a  comparatively  unknown 
essay^  that  Pestalozzi  most  clearly  states  the  theory. 
Herbart,  as  the  interpreter  and  philosophic  systematizer  of 
Pestalozzi' s  vague  educational  ideas,'  gave  more  precise 
form  to  the  conception,  stating  specifically  that  "  by  imita- 
ting the  traces  of  moral  culture  in  the  human  race,  the 
educator  shall  see  in  the  progress  of  his  pupil  a  recapitula- 

1  Loc.  cit.,  p.  6. 

«  Tr.  by  Payne,  p.  164. 

3  Discours  sur  I'origine  et  lesfondi'ments  de  Vinegalite  parmi  Us  hommfs. 

*  How  Gertrude  Teaches  Her  Children  (tr.  by  Holland  and  Turner),  pp.  23,  26, 
29.  32- 

6/Sj'rf.,  p.  89. 

«  Meine  Nachforschungen  iiber  den  Gang  der  Natiir  in  der  Enlwickelung  des 
Menschengeschlechts ,  S.  7.  • 

7  W.  Rein  :  "  Pestalozzi  and  Herbart,"  Forum,  May,  1896. 


72  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

tion  of  the  great  progress  of  mankind."'  In  his  yEsthet- 
ische  Darstellung  der  Welt,  Herbart  asserts  that  the  be- 
ginning point  for  the  child's  intellectual  and  sympathetic 
education  does  not  lie  in  the  present,  because  the  pupil's 
sphere  is  too  narrow  and  quickly  traversed,  the  adult's  too 
high  and  complicated.  Since,  however,  the  time  succes- 
sions of  history  end  in  the  present  and  our  culture  has  its 
origin  with  the  Greeks,  the  Homeric  poems  which  repro- 
duce the  life  and  thought  of  that  early  period  furnish 
appropriate  materials  for  the  beginning  of  education.' 
Ziller,  one  of  Herbart' s  disciples,  is  credited  with  formu- 
lating the  theory  of  the  Culture  Epochs  {^Die  Kultnrhistor- 
ischen  Stiifen)  still  more  definitely,^  and  with  an  attempt 
to  determine  with  some  precision  the  different  periods  of 
race  development  and  the  corresponding  stages  of  individ- 
ual growth.^  The  elaboration  of  this  theory  has  resulted 
in  many  schemes,  some  of  which,  like  Hartmann's,^  lay 
chief  stress  on  the  psychological  aspect  of  the  question, 
others,  like  Beyer's,^  emphasize  the  social  and  economic 
side.  To  statements  of  Vogt  which  bear  directly  upon  the 
present  discussion,  more  space  must  be  assigned.  He  as- 
serts a  parallelism  of  form  and  process  rather  than  of  con- 
tent and  products.'  Confining  attention  to  the  growth  of 
intelligence,  we  note  the  following  progressive  development 
in  the  mode  of  individual  thought:  (i)  the  imaginative 
{phantasiemdssige')  mode,  (2)  a  realistic  or  matter-of-fact 

1  Pddagogischen  Schri/ten. 
2Tr.  by  Felkin,  p.  73. 

3  De  Garmo  :    Herbart  and  the  Herbartians,  p.  109. 

4  Rein  :  Outliyies  0/ Pedagogics  (tr.  by  C.  C.  and  I.  J.  Van  Liew). 
6  Das  Erste  Schuljahr,  S.  30. 

6  Ibid.,  S.  44. 

TVogt  declares,  "  dass  es  individuelle  Entwickelungsstufen  des  kindlichen 
Geistes  giebt,  und  solche  der  Menscheit  oder  eines  bestimmten  Volkes,  welche 
den  ersten  homolog  sind,  und  dass  beide,  Individuum  und  Yolk,  sich  teils  betreffs 
ihrer  Intelligence,  teils  in  practischer  Hinsicht  entwickeln." — Ibid.,  S.  29. 


Development  of  Social  and  Individual  Thought.      73 

{thats'dchliche~)  mode,  and  finally  (3)  a  reflective  {refledir- 
endc)  manner  of  thought.  The  thought  connections  of  the 
individual  advance,  therefore,  in  accordance  with  the  cate- 
gories of  possibility  (^Moglichkeit),  reality  (  Wirklichkeit) , 
and  necessity  {^Noihivcndigkeit') .  In  the  case  of  a  race  or 
Volk  the  corresponding  progress  is  from  (i)  a  mythical 
{mythische)  to  (2)  an  historical  and  finally  to  (3)  a  philo- 
sophical mode  of  observation  and  thought,  which  success- 
ively find  expression  in  the  psychical  products  of  a  people. ' 

It  is  unnecessary  to  follow  out  the  application  of  this 
analysis  to  a  course  of  study.  The  point  which  deserves 
attention  here  is  the  concept  of  generally  parallel  modes  of 
thought  development  in  the  race  and  in  the  individual — an 
idea  to  be  discriminated  carefully  from  that  of  definite 
epochs  and  periods,  of  stages  and  "cultural  products."* 
The  theory  of  Vogt  translated  into  terms  of  the  social  mind 
is  simply  the  assertion  that  the  collective  tradition  is  syn- 
thesized— first  in  a  socially  unconscious  or  semi-conscious 
manner,  then  more  and  more  reflectively  until  it  culminates 
in  modern  science  and  philosophy. 

The  general  theory  of  parallelism  has  been  greatly  influ- 
enced by  the  development  of  biology  during  the  present 
century.  The  researches  of  Wolf?,  Von  Baer,  Dumas, 
Dollinger,  and  others  in  embryology  threw  light  upon  the 
phenomena  of  individual  growth,  while  the  wider  observa- 
tions and  generalizations  of  Treviranus,  Lamarck,  Darwin, 
and  Wallace  offered  a  general  theory  of  race  development.' 
By  Darwin  himself  in  part  and  notably  by  Ernst  von  Baer, 
Haeckel,  Louis  Agassiz,  Spencer,  and  Huxley  these  results 

1  Das  Erste  Schiiljahr,  S.  29. 

2  It  is  interesting  to  relate  Vogt's  analysis  to  the  "  three  stages"  of  Comte, 
theological,  metaphysical,  and  positive  or  scientific. 

8  T.H.Huxley:    "Evolution,"  Encyclopadia  Pritannica,  9th   Ed.,  Vol.  VIII., 
pp.  744-746. 


74  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 


were  synthesized  into  what  is  popularly  known  as  the  "  re- 
capitulation theory,'"  according  to  which  the  individual,  in 
his  development,  passes  rapidly  through  the  various  stages 
by  which  the  species  has  reached  its  present  morphologi- 
cal and  physiological  status,  or,  in  technical  terms,  the 
ontogenetic  and  the  philogenetic  series  are  coincident.' 

This  biological  conception  is  undergoing  more  or  less 
damaging  criticism  at  the  present  time,  but  it  has  done 
much  to  give  support  to  the  general  idea  which  we  are 
discussing.  It  should  be  noted  that  in  its  original  form 
the  recapitulation  theory  is  asserted  of  vital  phenomena 
only.  The  hypothesis  has  been  carried  up  into  the  spheres 
of  psychical  and  social  phenomena.  As  we  have  seen, 
the  causal  connections  between  these  groups  are  not  defi- 
nitely determined,  so  that  the  greatest  care  must  be  exer- 
cised in  reasoning  from  the  physical  into  the  mental  or 
from  the  mental  into  the  social  realm.  ^  Again  the  purely 
physiological  theory  must  be  modified  by  the  statement 
that  for  an  ideal  "recapitulation"  identity  of  environment 
would  be  demanded.  Even  if  the  Lamarckian  conception 
of  heredity  be  accepted,  it  provides  only  one  factor  in  the 
evolution  of  the  individual.  The  influence  of  surrounding 
conditions  upon  the  organism  is  another  element  to  which 
large  if  not  predominant  importance  must  be  attributed. 
This  modification  of  the  hypothesis  must  not  be  over- 
looked in  applying  it  by  analogy  to  the  phenomena  of 
consciousness  and  association.  Of  those  who  have  system- 
atically attempted   to  account  for  mental  development  in 

1  Haeckel :   Gesammte  Populdre  Vortriige,  S.  94. 

2  Le  Conte  :  Evolution  and  Its  Relation  to  Religious  Thought,  pp.  9  and  lo. 
*  Spencer  :  Essays,  "  The  Genesis  of  Science,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  73. 

Durkheim  goes  so  far  as  to  say  :  "  En  un  mot,  il  y  a  entre  la  psychologie  et  la 
sociologie  la  mSme  solution  de  continuity  qu'entre  la  biologie  et  les  sciences 
physico-chimiques.  Par  consequent,  toutes  les  fois,  qu'un  phenom&ne  social  est 
directement  expliqu6  par  un  phenom^ne  psychique  on  peut  Stre  assure  que 
I'explication  est  fausse." — Les  regies  de  la  methode  sociologique ,  p.  12S. 


Development  of  Social  and  Individual  Thought.      75 

terms  of  organic  evolution  Spencer  and  Romanes  may  be 
regarded  as  prominent  types. 

The  former  in  his  First  Priyiciples  and  more  specifically 
in  other  parts  of  his  philosophy  has  asserted  that 

"The  phenomena  subjectively  known  as  changes  in  conscious- 
ness are  objectively  known  as  nervous  excitations  and  discharges 
which  science  now  interprets  in  modes  of  motion.  Hence  in 
following  up  organic  evolution  the  advance  of  retained  motion  in 
integration,  in  heterogeneity,  and  in  definiteness,  may  be  expected 
to  show  itself  alike  in  the  visible  nervo-muscular  actions  and  in 
the  correlative  mental  changes. "' 

Spencer  traces  this  evolution  both  in  the  individual  and 
in  society  and  definitely  asserts  a  parallel  between  them  : 

"The  education  of  the  child  must  accord  both  in  mode  and 
arrangement  with  the  education  of  mankind  as  considered  histori- 
cally ;  or,  in  other  words,  the  genesis  of  knowledge  in  the  in- 
dividual must  follow  the  same  course  as  the  genesis  of  knowledge 
in  the  race."" 

The  problem  which  Romanes  set  himself  was  to  trace 
the  development  of  consciousness  from  its  first  emergence 
up  through  the  animal  series  to  its  highest  organization  in 
man.  In  his  volume  Mental  Evolution  in  Ma?i,  he 
attempts  to  show  the  transition  both  in  the  individual  and 
in  the  race  from  "  receptual  communication"^  in  animals 
to  the  ' '  distinctively  human  faculty "  of  "  conceptual 
predication."*  He  afifirms  that  a  characteristically  animal 
mode  of  thought  attains  its  highest  development  in  the 
first  part  of  a  child's  second  year,  at  which  period  the 
emergence  of  a  human  form  of  intelligence  begins  to 
take  place.'  It  is  further  asserted  that  in  the  light  of 
actual  history,  tradition,  and  antiquarian  remains,  the  race 

1  First  Principles,  p.  391. 
8  Education,  p.  122. 
8  Pp.  36-39- 
«  Ibid.,  pp.  34,  76-78. 
»  Ibid.,  p.  237. 


76  The  Social  Mi7id  and  Education. 

seems  to  have  advanced  continuously  in  stages  analogous 
to  those  of  individual  development. '  Romanes  complains 
that  the  critics  of  his  theory  insist  upon  contrasting  the 
adult  psychology  of  civilized  man  with  the  lowest  forms  of 
animal  intelligence,  ignoring  on  the  one  hand  the  psycho- 
genesis  of  the  child  and  on  the  other  the  mental  traits  of 
the  savage,  both  of  which  are  of  the  greatest  significance.* 

The  students  of  psychical  phenomena,  largely  under  the 
influence  of  biology,  have  been  led  to  examine  not  only  the 
facts  of  adult  consciousness,  but  to  trace  the  growth  of 
mind  from  earliest  infancy  to  old  age.  The  aim  of  "child 
study ' '  is  primarily  to  determine  the  general  laws  of  such 
development  in  the  first  years  of  life,  the  "  plastic"  period, 

Preyer,  Hartmann,  Sully,  Baldwin,  and  many  others 
have  given  much  special  study  to  this  problem,  which  has 
in  some  form  engaged  the  attention  of  most  modern  psy- 
chologists. Sully  gives  expression  to  the  theory  in  this 
wise  : 

"  According  to  this  way  [the  evolutionary-]  of  looking  at  infancy 
the  successive  phases  of  its  mental  life  are  a  brief  resume  of  the 
more  important  features  in  the  slow  upward  progress  of  the 
species.  The  periods  dominated  successively  by  sense  and  appe- 
tite, by  blind  wondering  and  superstitious  fancy,  and  by  a  calmer 
observation  and  a  juster  reasoning  about  things,  these  steps  mark 
the  pathway  both  of  the  child  mind  and  of  the  race  mind."  ' 

Hofding  traces  the  stream  of  consciousness  in  the  in- 
dividual from  the  foetus  state  to  death.  It  is  said  to  form  a 
curve  with  terminals  representing  comparatively  simple 
states,  while  in  the  middle  and  at  the  highest  point  ideas, 
feelings,  and  expressions  of  will  specifically  appear.  ' '  What 
in  this  way  applies  to  the  development  of  the  individual  is 
valid  also  for  that  of  the  race.      .      .      .      It  is  a  condition 

1  Romanes  :  loc.  cit..  p.  391. 

2/*irf.,  p.  43S. 

8  Studies  of  Childhood,  p.  85. 


Development  of  Social  and  Individual  Thought.      77 

of  any  independent  development  of  the  life  of  thought  and 
feeling,  that  the  elementary,  practical  requirements  of  life 
should  be  satisfied."  Only  as  social  organization  advances 
sufiticiently  to  secure  leisure  to  a  few  or  to  many  can 
reflective  thought  apply  itself  to  science.  As  the  indi- 
vidual advances  from  vegetative  and  instinctive  reactions 
to  differentiated  consciousness,  so  society  passes  from  a 
mere  animal  struggle  for  existence  to  a  division  of  physical 
and  psychical  labor,  the  discrimination  and  elaboration  of 
thought  in  science,  of  feeling  in  art,  and  of  volition  in 
purposeful  collective  action.'  Again,  in  discussing  the  in- 
fluence of  unconscious  habit,  Hofding  declares  that  "In 
the  individual,  as  in  nations,  sudden  revolutions  avail  but 
little  ;  below  the  surface  tendencies  persist  which  it  takes 
time  to  overcome."^ 

This  thought  offers  a  natural  transition  to  the  sociologi- 
cal point  of  view,  which  in  general  regards  society  as  a 
developing  whole,  to  be  interpreted,  as  we  have  seen,  by 
concepts  derived  from  biology  and  psychology — in  terms, 
therefore,  of  structure,  function,  mind,  consciousness,  and 
personality. 

Here  also  there  are  various  degrees  of  definiteness  and 
precision  in  the  application  of  the  theory.  A  community 
of  boys  is  regarded  as  affording  materials  for  a  new  science 
of  "social  embryology."  ^  Children  playing  in  a  sand-pile 
develop  methods  of  settling  disputes  which  are  declared  to 
throw  light  upon  the  evolution  of  the  idea  of  justice  in  the 
human  race.^  The  ethnologist,  taking  a  broad  view  of 
ages  and  races  of  men,  seeking  to  discover  the  origins  of 
nations   and  of   civilizations,  sees   "in  the  growth  of   the 

1  Outlines  of  Psychology  (tr.  by  Lowndes),  p.  93. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  75. 

sjohnson  :  "  Ruditnentar>'  Society  Among  Boys,"  J.  H.  U.  Studies,  November, 
1884,  p.  51. 
*  Hall :  "  The  Story  of  a  Sand-Pile,"  Scribner's  Magazine,  Vol.  III.,  p.  690. 


78  The  Social  Mmd  ayid  Edtuation. 

child  from  helpless  infancy  to  adolescence,  and  through  the 
strong  and  trying  development  of  manhood  to  the  idiosyn- 
crasies of  disease  and  senescence  ...  an  epitome  in 
miniature  of  the  life  of  the  race."  Philologist  and  artist 
study  the  child  with  the  hope  of  finding  some  clue  to  the 
origin  and  development  of  speech  and  artistic  expression 
from  the  earliest  beginnings  of  society. ' 

We  have  noted  that  earlier  sociologists,  such  as  Comte 
and  Spencer,  have  recognized  the  theory  of  parallel  devel- 
opment with  greater  definiteness.  The  later  schools  of 
psychological  interpreters  of  social  phenomena  have  made 
still  more  of  the  analogy  between  the  individual  and 
society.  In  general,  however,  emphasis  has  been  laid  less 
upon  genetic  parallelism  than  upon  statical  correspond- 
ences. 

Lilienfeld,  however,  states  the  proposition  in  terms  of 
social  development  most  clearly,  asserting  that  the  devel- 
opmental stages  of  the  human  embryo's  evolution  repre- 
sent the  progressive  social  development  of  the  race  in  its 
gradual  rise  during  the  course  of  the  entire  history  of 
humanity.*  He  further  points  out  what  has  been  insisted 
upon  by  Baldwin  from  the  standpoint  of  physiological 
psychology,  that  in  social  as  well  as  individual  evolu- 
tion the  lower  forms  are  not  fully  reproduced  but  only 
hinted  at,  i.  e. ,  there  are  ' '  short-cuts ' '  in  the  recapitula- 
tion.^ Lilienfeld  also  applies  the  idea  to  education,  and 
deprecates  an  exclusively  scientific  form  of  instruction 
which  would  in  his  judgment  prove  one-sided  both  for  the 
individual  and  for  the  race.*  Schaffle  traces  an  elaborate 
analogy  between  individual  and  social  psychology,*  guard- 

1  Chamberlain  :   The  Child  and  ChildJiood  in  Folk  Thought,  p.  3. 

2  Gcdanken  iiber  die  Socialwissenscha/t  der  Zukun/t,  I.  Theil,  S,   247,  251. 
s  Ibid.,  S.  249. 

*  3id.,  S.  267. 

6  Bati  und  Lebeti  des  socialen  Kbrpers.  I.  Auf.,  Bd.  I.,  S.  392-409. 


Development  of  Social  and  Individual  Thought.      79 

ing  with  comparative  success  against  a  fanciful  use  of 
terms. '  In  his  treatment  of  the  collective  spirit  (  Volks- 
geist)  and  social  self-consciousness  {^Selbstbewxisstsein  des 
socialen  Korpers),  which  exist  only  in  individual  minds, 
he  shows  that  the  social  spirit  gives  evidence  of  growth  and 
development.^  The  common  possessions  of  the  race  are 
declared  to  be  the  accumulations  of  countless  individual  con- 
tributions, gradually  reacted  upon,  coordinated,  and  con- 
solidated into  a  coherent  whole.  ^  The  analogy  is  recog- 
nized in  a  general  way  and  emphasis  is  laid  upon  the  com- 
parative brevity — and  consequent  rapidity — of  individual 
evolution.  Schafflle  also  discusses  the  recapitulation  theory 
of  Haeckel,*  but  chiefly  with  the  object  of  differentiating 
sociology  from  zoology.*  He  outlines  the  main  stages  of 
social  evolution  but  does  not  refer  specifically  to  a  parallel 
individual  development.  The  whole  work,  however,  is 
filled  with  allusions  which  leave  no  doubt  as  to  the  author's 
acceptance  of  the  theory  in  its  chief  outlines. 

De  Greef  approaches  the  question  from  the  social  stand- 
point and  endeavors  to  show  that  social  intelligence  is 
formed  in  a  manner  strictly  analogous  to  the  growth  of 
individual  consciousness.  Following  the  suggestion  of 
Comte,  De  Greef  has  applied  the  hierarchical  idea  to 
social  phenomena,  arranging  them  in  a  scale  determined  by 
increasingly  conscious  social  action.  The  evolution  of 
society  is  characterized,    therefore,    by  progressively  pur- 

1  In  the  second  edition  of  his  work,  Schaffle  has  almost  wholly  abandoned  the 
biological  terminology. 

2  Loc.  cit.,  S.419.  "  Er  schreitet  in  seinen  Wachsthum  nur  langsam,  doch  unauf- 
horlich  fort." 

8  This  process  "  muss  bei  dem  weltgeschichilich  ausgedehnten  Lebenslauf  des 
socialen  Korpers  langer  dauern,  als  analog  bei  der  kurz  lebenden  Einzelnperson. 
Und  doch  braucht  selbst  die  leztere  Zeit  genug  fur  ihre  charactervoUe,  selbst- 
bewusste  Durchbildung  und  fiir  wechselseitige  Accommodation  allcr  Theile 
ihres  Nervensystems." — 3id.,  p.  417. 

4  3id.,  pp.  827-847. 

*  Introduction  5  la  sociologie,  2me  Panie,  Chap.  XIII. 


8o  The  Social  Mind  and  Edncation. 

poseful  regard  for  social  phenomena,  economic,  genetic, 
artistic,  those  relating  to  belief,  juridical  and  political, 
successively.'  The  activities  lowest  in  the  scale  are  rel- 
atively unconscious,  reflex,  and  instinctive,  just  as  in  the 
case  of  the  individual  the  physiological  functions  are  per- 
formed either  automatically  or  with  the  minimum  of  con- 
sciousness. Again,  as  a  certain  measure  of  organization  in 
the  lower  social  phenomena  is  essential  to  the  further 
development  of  the  higher,  so  the  instinctive  and  reflex 
activities  of  the  individual  form  the  necessary  basis  for  the 
psychical  functions."  "En  resume,  la  conscience  sociale, " 
says  De  Greef,  "se  forme  naturellement  suiv^ant  les  memes 
lois  que  la  conscience  individuelle ;  elle  passe  du  r^flexe  a 
r  instinct,  a  la  memoire,  au  raisonnement  et  finalement  a 
la  m^thode ;  ce  developpement  est  organique. ' '  ^  The 
recognition  of  contract  in  social  activities  is  regarded  as  an 
evidence  of  collective  consciousness.'' 

De  Greef  makes  much  of  the  gradual  fading  away  of 
consciousness,  social  and  individual,  after  a  purposeful 
decision  has  been  reached.  Every  conscious  act  by  repe- 
tition becomes  habit  in  the  individual  and  custom  in  soci- 
ety. Thus  conscious  gains  are  preserved  and  consolidated 
in  automatism.  * 

It  should  be  noted  that  De  Greef  concerns  himself  not 
with  stages  of  cultural  attainment,  either  in  the  individual 
or  in  the  race,  but  with  the  general  principles  of  intellec- 
tual development  in  both.  He  directs  attention  to  form 
rather  than  to  content,  to  process  rather  than  to  products. 
Yet  he  regards  the  latter  as  organic  growths  displaying 

1  Loc.  cit.,  2me  Partie,  pp.  443  sq. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  437. 
8  Ibid.,  p.  453. 

4  "  Le  contrat  est  une  forme  intellectuale  oQ  la  conscience  se  manifest  naturelle- 
ment i  un  degr6  plus  61ev6  que  dans  toute  autre  forme  psychique." — Ibid.,  p.  453. 
6  Ibid,  pp.  433,  441. 


Development  of  Social  and  Individual  Thought.    8i 


the  same  phenomena  of  formation. '  Other  sociologists 
have  not  specifically  adopted  the  genetic  parallelism, 
although  they  constantly  point  out  or  assume  analogies 
which  are  related  to  it.  Durkheim  lays  stress  upon  the 
determining  character  of  the  social  niilieti  which  molds 
the  individual  after  its  own  model.  ^  Tarde  sees  in  the 
formation  of  the  social  tradition  a  process  analogous  to  the 
growth  of  individual  memory  ;  in  social  standards  and 
customs  influences  similar  to  the  inherited  tendencies  in 
man.' 

From  the  materials  presented  it  is  clear  that  in  a  general 
way  at  least  the  parallelism  is  widely  recognized  and  has 
been  incorporated  in  the  social  tradition.  Yet  this  general 
conception  may  be  rendered  more  precise  in  different 
ways.  It  may  be  treated  as  a  biological  problem,  as  a 
psychological  theory,  or  as  a  sociological  hypothesis.  In 
all  these  aspects  it  must  have  meaning  for  teachers. 
Again  the  parallelism  may  be  asserted  for  the  products  and 
types  of  race  development  and  individual  growth,  as  when 
it  is  afifirmed  that  the  youth  must  be  for  a  time  a  savage  or 
a  cow-boy,  that  he  must  be  interested  by  literature  which 
describes  pastoral,  agricultural,  and  industrial  life  success- 
ively.* Or  the  correspondence  may  be  stated  in  terms  of 
mental  modes.  It  may  be  urged  that  at  certain  periods 
the  child  will  show  fear,  or  will  reason  as  do  primitive 
men  in  similar  circumstances.  The  former  theory  was 
pushed  to  its  limits  by  Ziller,  who  attempted  to  systema- 
tize the  educational  process  on  this  basis  with  an  exactness 

1  "  Les  croyances  sont,  d  ti'en  pas  douter,  purcment  reflexes  ou  instinclives  & 
leur  origiiie,  et  il  en  est  longtemps  aiiisi.  .  .  .  Pr6cis6ment  parce  que  le 
developpement  des  croyances  est  organique  et  non  pas  accidentel,  leur  dfvelop- 
pemcnt  suit  la  voie  naturelle  qui  va  du  r£-flexe  d  I'instinct,  au  raissonnement  et 
enfin  il  la  pure  methode  coiisciente."     Ibid.,  p.  449, 

s  De  la  division  dit  travail  social,  pp.  .•?85-39i. 

•  La  logique  sociale,  p.  109. 

*  Van  Liew:  "  The  Culture  Epoch  Thcorj-,"  First  Hfrbart  Year  Book. 


82  The  Social  Mind  and  EdiuatioJi. 

and  rigidity  which  ignored  or  underestimated  the  varia- 
tions of  organic  growth  and  the  modifying  influences  of 
heredity  and  a  changing  environment.'  The  later  Her- 
bartians  themselves  have  reacted  from  this  formalism,  and 
have  made  their  plans  much  more  flexible,  although  these 
are  perhaps  still  open  to  the  charge  of  putting  too  much 
faith  in  "cultural  products"  as  the  appropriate  material 
for  successive  periods  of  instruction.*  Without  attempting 
a  discussion  of  this  point,  we  may  pass  to  the  other  aspect 
of  the  parallel,  i.  e. ,  mental  modes  in  the  race  and  the 
individual. 

Once  more  we  must  give  heed  chiefly  to  the  intellectual 
or  reasoning  processes,  not  losing  sight  of  the  fact,  how- 
ever, that  in  such  a  course  we  are  abstracting  an  organic 
part  of  consciousness.^  It  has  been  pointed  out  that  the 
social  mind  has  been  organized  out  of  the  vague  unity  of 
human  life.  Primitive  men  in  whom  reason  first  dawned 
were  confronted  by  a  confused  whole,  which  they  gradu- 
ally analyzed  into  its  components.  So  the  infant  looks 
out,  in  James'  picturesque  phrase,  upon  ' '  thinghood  as  a 
whole." 

"The  first  sensation  which  an  infant  gets  is  for  him  the  uni- 
verse. And  the  universe  which  he  later  comes  to  know  is  nothing 
but  an  ampHfication  and  an  impHcation  of  that  first  simple  germ 
which,  by  accretion  on  the  one  hand  and  intussusception  on  the 
other,  has  grown  so  big  and  complex  and  articulate  that  its  first 
estate  is  unrememberable."* 

James  Ward  expresses  a  similar  thought  in  his  phrase 

1  Allgenieine  Pddagogik,  S.  214. 

-  Van  Liew :  loc.  cit.,  p.  95. 

Cf.  C.  A.  McMurray  :  "  The  Culture  Epochs,"  Second  Herbart  Year  Book,  p.  96. 

a  It  is  quite  conceivable  that  considerations  based  upon  a  purely  intellectual 
analysis  ought  to  be  modified  by  regard  for  emotional  and  ethical  development. 
Thus  the  advocates  of  cultural  products  as  materials  of  instruction  lay  stress 
upon  their  aesthetic  and  moral  value.  Vide  C  t\.  McMurray:  loc.  c//.,  pp.  103- 
106. 

4  Psychology,  Vol.  II.,  p.  S.    Cf.  also  p.  344. 


Development  of  Social  and  Individual  Thotight.      83 

"presentation  continuum."  "We  are  led,"  he  says,  "to 
the  conception  of  a  totuni  objcctivum,  or  '  objective  con- 
tinuum,' which  is  gradually  differentiated,  thereby  becom- 
ing what  we  call  distinct  presentations. ' ' ' 

Yet  it  will  not  do  to  lay  too  great  stress  upon  the 
earliest  period,  which  has  much  in  common  with  animal 
psychology.  It  must  be  remembered  that  to  the  child,  as 
to  the  adult,  "the  sense  of  the  whole  comes  first."  The 
process  of  analysis  asserts  itself  immediately,  however,  and 
the  child  begins  to  examine  details. 

But  the  social  mind  from  the  first  demands  unity  also. 
The  separated  elements  must  be  put  together  again.  The 
germs  of  science  and  philosophy  are  present  in  primitive 
thought.  So,  too,  the  child  mind  is  "endowed  with  a 
lively  and  inextinguishable  impulse  to  connect  and  sim- 
plify. ' '  ^  But  for  this  tendency  his  world  would  be  appar- 
ently disconnected  and  hopelessly  capricious. 

Once  more  it  has  been  shown  that  the  sciences  have 
grown  out  of  attempts  to  meet  the  daily  needs  of  life,  i.  c., 
out  of  the  arts.  "  Man  began  to  reflect,"  says  Sully,  "  on 
the  connections  of  things  in  order  to  supply  himself  with 
food,  to  ward  ofi  cold  and  other  evils.  So  with  the  child. 
Before  the  age  of  speech  we  may  observe  him  thinking  out 
rapidly  as  occasion  arises  some  new  practical  expedient. ' ' ' 

Again,  we  have  seen  that  the  explanations  or  philoso- 
phies which  have  successively  influenced  the  social  tra- 
dition have  become  less  and  less  anthropomorphic.  In 
primitive  society  the  theories  based  upon  personal  volition 
are  very  prominent  and  result  in  myths,  fetishism,  and 
theological  explanations.  The  predominance  of  fancy  and 
imagination  among  primitive  people  is  significant,   for  in 

1  Art.  "  Psychology,"  Encyclopedia  liritaunica,  Vol.  XX.,  p.  45. 
s  Sully:  loc.  cU.,p.  73. 
«  /bid.,  p.  71. 


84  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

these  sources  the  thought  which  results  in  sciences  and 
philosophy  has  its  origin.  The  attempts  of  a  child  to 
account  for  phenomena  in  terms  of  its  own  imaginative 
consciousness  are  familiar. ' 

"Thus  in  the  case  of  children,  as  in  that  of  uncultured  races, 
the  supernatural  realm  is  at  first  brought  at  most  into  only  a 
very  loose  connection  with  the  visible  world.  All  the  same  there 
is  seen  in  the  measure  of  the  individual  child's  intelligence  the 
endeavor  to  coordinate."" 

With  the  progress  of  society  the  search  for  causes  and 
processes  becomes  more  definite.  In  the  history  of  human 
thought  attempted  solution  of  the  more  difficult  problems 
of  origins  and  final  causes  preceded  in  a  general  way  the 
examination  of  processes  and  the  determination  of  invari- 
able sequences.  Metaphysics  had  its  turn  before  science. 
It  would  be  going  beyond  the  facts  to  assert  that  the  child 
first  concerns  himself  with  metaphysical  problems  and 
then  turns  to  a  primitively  scientific  mode  of  thought,  but 
a  study  of  children's  questions  throws  some  light  on  the 
matter.  "When  this  more  definite  scientific  direction  is 
taken  by  a  child's  questioning  we  may  observe  that  the 
ambitious  'why?'  begins  to  play  a  second  role,  the  first 
being  now  taken  by  the  more  modest  '  how?' '" 

In  general,  therefore,  it  may  be  said  that  the  social  and 
the  individual  mind  grow  by  a  process  of  analysis  and 
synthesis,  by  examination  of  details  and  the  connection  of 
them  in  explanations  which  become  less  and  less  anthropo- 
morphic. 

Yet  this  is  only  a  partial  description.  The  social  tradition 
has  accumulated  a  vast  amount  of  experiences  and  obser- 
vations which  are  not  immediately  available   for   organi- 

1  This  is  admirably  illustrated  by  the  remark  of  a  little  girl  who  on  seeing  for 
the  first  time  a  horseless  carriage  exclaimed:  "  Look,  mama,  fairy  horses  must 
be  pulling  that  carriage." 

s  Sully  :  loc.  cit.,  p.  92. 

s  3id.,  p.  88. 


Development  of  Social  and  Individual  Thoxight.      85 

zation,  which  await  some  higher  and  broader  generalization 
and  synthesis.  These  materials  form  a  part  of  the  social 
memory  and  are  preserved  for  future  use.  In  an  analogous 
way  the  child  mind  during  the  ascendency  of  sense  activity 
gathers  a  store  of  clear  memory  images  as  "  a  necessary 
preliminary  to  reflection  and  thought.'" 

With  the  systematization  of  abstract  thought  in  the  race 
the  unity  of  social  life  begins  to  be  more  definitely  analyzed 
and  the  social  tradition  becomes  differentiated  into  specific 
parts,  sciences,  arts,  literature.  In  the  case  of  the  individ- 
ual, education  superimposes  this  rationalized  scheme  to 
such  an  extent  that  it  is  impossible  to  determine  just  what 
part  is  played  by  natural  development.  Yet  we  know 
from  the  laws  of  mental  growth  that  so  far  as  this  analysis 
into  subjects  has  a  real  and  not  merely  verbal  existence  in 
the  pupil's  consciousness,  it  has  been  achieved  by  differ- 
entiating his  life  experiences  and  memory  images,  classify- 
ing them  and  giving  them  an  abstract  form.  To  this 
subject  we  shall  return  in  a  subsequent  chapter. 

The  gradual  systematizing  and  development  of  the  social 
tradition  has  been  described  as  the  result  of  collective 
action,  at  first  unconscious,  but  ultimately  with  increas- 
ingly definite  aim  and  methods,  becoming  self-conscious. 
These  words  are  borrowed  from  individual  psychology,  so 
that  to  assert  a  parallel  in  terms  would  be  simply  to  beg 
the  question.  If  we  turn  our  attention  first  to  the  individ- 
ual side  we  are  confronted  with  widely  varying  theories  as 
to  the  nature  of  consciousness  and  self-consciousness.  The 
view  is  maintained  that  there  can  be  no  consciousness  that 
is  not  self-consciousness. 

"  Over  and  over  again  [says  Baldwin]  have  systems  been  built 
upon  the  subject-object  theory  of  consciousness  ;  namely,  that 
personality,  subjectivity,  consciousness  in  any  form   necessarily 

1  Sully  :  loc.  cH.,  p.  69. 


86  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

implicated  an  antithesis,  in  consciousness,  between  ego  and  non- 
ego.  But  an  example  of  what  is  thus  denied  may  be  seen  upon 
the  floor  of  any  nursery  where  there  is  a  child  less  than  six  months 
of  age."' 

Not  only  is  there  declared  to  be  a  distinction  between 
consciousness  and  self-consciousness,  but  it  is  further  as- 
serted that  consciousness  shades  away  into  the  unconscious 
and  that  many  thought  connections  are  made  below  the 
"threshold."^  Moreover,  it  is  affirmed  that  these  three 
states  are  not  merely  isolated  mental  conditions,  but  are 
genetically  related  in  a  process  of  development  from  un- 
consciousness to  the  highest  form  of  self-consciousness. 
"  Das  Ich  ist  ein  Entwickelungsproduct,  wie  der  ganze 
Mensch  ein  Entwickelungsproduct  ist. ' '  ^ 

Chief  attention  has  been  given  to  the  earlier  develop- 
ments of  consciousness  and  self-consciousness  in  the  indi- 
vidual. The  transition  from  animal  to  human  thought  is 
marked  according  to  Romanes  by  the  substitution  of 
"conceptual"  for  "receptual"  thought,  the  recognition 
of  abstract  similarities  rather  than  the  mere  association  of 
habitually  connected  concrete  things.  James  makes  prac- 
tically the  same  distinction  in  the  phrases  "association  by 
similarity"  and  "contiguous  association  based  on  exper- 
ience." True  reasoning  is  the  result  of  association  by 
similarity,  the  abstraction  from  particulars  of  a  common 
character  by  which  they  are  united  in  generalized  knowl- 
edge. Differences  in  reasoning  power  are  simply  differ- 
ences in  degree,  not  in  kind,  of  ability  to  associate  by 
similarity.  ' '  This  answers  the  question  why  Darwin  and 
Newton  had  to  be  waited  for  so  long,"  says  James.  "  The 
flash  of  similarity  between  the  apple  and  the  moon,  be- 
tween the  rivalry  for  food  in  nature  and  the  rivalry  for 

1  Mental  Evolution  in  the  Child  and  the  Race,  pp.  5-6. 

2  Hofding :  lac.  cii.,  Chap.  III.,  especially  pp.  72,  73,  75,  77,  85. 
8  Quoted  by  Romanes  :  Mental  Evolution  in  Man,  p.  207. 


Development  of  Social  and  Individual  Thought.      87 


man's  selection,  was  too  recondite  to  haxe  occurred  to  any 
but  exceptional  minds.'"  Intellectual  growth,  therefore, 
involves  as  one  of  its  elements  development  of  the  power 
to  detect  similarities  and  to  associate  by  means  of  them. 
But  this  process  does  not  at  the  outset  demand  subjective 
recognition  and  direction  by  a  self  or  personality.  Ro- 
manes maintains  that  language  and  judgment  may  be 
developed  in  a  child  far  beyond  animal  signs  and  receptual 
thought  before  he  reaches  the  stage  of  differentiation 
between  subject  and  object  ;  that  there  is  consciousness 
but  not  self-consciousness.* 

Another  distinction  between  animal  and  child  is  in  the 
nature  of  their  speech.  At  first  in  both  it  is  "  receptual," 
or  by  "  contiguous  association."  The  animal  never  passes 
this  point,  but  the  child  gradually  abstracts  the  idea  of  sign 
as  sign  and  applies  it  intentionally.  "This  general  purpose 
constitutes,"  in  James'  opinion,  "  the  peculiarity  of  human 
speech,  and  explains  its  prodigious  development."  ' 

The  ability  to  associate  by  similarity  and  the  exercise  of 
intention  are  the  germs  from  which  have  developed — in 
correlation  with  the  other  mental  functions — the  marvelous 
power  of  human  reason  purposefully  applied  to  the  prob- 
lems of  life.  It  remains  to  show  that  the  development  of 
intentional  thinking  is  accompanied  by  an  expansion  or 
extension  of  self-consciousness.  The  higher  achievements 
of  thought  are  made  under  the  guidance  of  a  growing  per- 
sonality which  gains  constantly  a  clearer,  more  definite  view 
of  its  own  nature,  its  wider  relations,  and  its  own  ends.  Here 
again  we  must  confine  ourselves  arbitrarily  to  the  cognitive 
side  of  the  growth,  which,  however,  can  be  understood 
fully  only  in  its  organic  relations  with  feeling  and  conation. 

1  Loc.  cit.,  Vol.  U.,  p.  360. 

S  Loc.  cit.,  p.  194. 

8  Loc.  cit.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  356. 


88  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

Mackenzie  distinguishes  five  ways  in  which  self  may  be 
conceived  : 

1.  The  unimportant  and  arbitrary  sense  in  which  any- 
thing that  can  be  regarded  as  an  individual  may  be  said 
to  have  a  self.     E.  g.,  a  river  empties  itself  into  the  sea. ' 

2.  Next,  an  object  is  said  to  have  a  self  if  it  must  be  re- 
garded as  a  whole  in  order  to  be  understood.  An  organ- 
ism must  be  so  regarded.  ^ 

3.  The  meaning  of  the  term  becomes  still  deeper  when 
the  unity  of  an  organic  being  attains  to  consciousness,  i.  e. , 
the  parts  are  reflected  into  a  focus  where  their  relations  to 
the  external  world  register  themselves,  and  where  a  re- 
action upon  the  external  world  begins.  The  central  ele- 
ment in  this  form  of  consciousness  seems  to  be  the  simple 
feeling  of  pleasure  and  pain,  i.  e.,  the  consciousness  of  the 
harmony  or  disharmony  of  the  content  of  experience  with 
the  unity  in  which  it  is  contained.^ 

4.  A  still  higher  stage  is  reached  when  ' '  the  organic 
being  becomes  actually  conscious  of  itself  as  a  unity ^  i.  e. , 
the  stage  at  which  it  reflects  upon  its  own  life,  and  recog- 
nizes itself  as  one  throughout  all  its  changes."  In  this 
stage  happiness  as  an  ideal  which  sees  wider  relations  takes 
the  place  of  pleasure  which  is  concerned  merely  with 
immediate  gratification.^ 

5.  Finally,  man  comes  to  realize  not  only  that  "his 
life  is  for  him  a  whole,  but  also  in  the  sense  that  his  world 
is  a  whole.  He  is  aware  of  his  individual  Hfe  not  as  a 
microcosm  in  a  chaos,  but  as  a  microcosm  in  macrocosm, 
to  the  objective  unity  of  which  his  individual  life  as  well  as 
everything  else  is  referred."* 

1  An  Introduction  to  Social  Philosophy,  p.  161. 
s  Ibid.,  p.  162. 

3  Hrid.,  p.  163. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  164. 
6  Ibid., p.  165. 


Development  of  Social  and  Individual  Thought.      89 

Corresponding  to  these  stages  of  developing  self-con- 
sciousness are  certain  problems  which  human  thought 
must  successively  attack.  Here  we  should  note  the  tran- 
sition from  those  gropings  and  feelings  after  explanations 
which  have  been  noted  in  children  to  the  purposeful 
examination  and  reflection  of  adult  life.  The  demand  for 
pleasurable  feeling  requires  a  thinking  out  of  the  means  by 
which  it  is  secured,  i.  e.,  a  preliminary  understanding  of 
the  laws  of  the  physical  world.  Further  experience  and 
the  recognition  of  happiness  as  a  more  remote  ideal  are 
accompanied  by  the  rationalizing  of  subjective  as  well  as 
objective  phenomena.  The  immediate  pleasure  of  interest 
in  intellectual  activity  prepares  materials  for  further  reflec- 
tion. Finally,  the  fuller  recognition  of  self  demands  a 
conscious  effort  to  formulate  more  definitely  an  end  which 
the  self  may  purposefully  seek.  The  ideal  can  be  formed 
only  out  of  the  materials  of  past  reflection  which  are 
organized  into  a  conception  of  social  life  as  a  whole  to 
which  the  individual  self  is  intrinsically  related. 

If  we  turn  from  the  individual  to  the  social  mind,  we 
observe  that  the  latter  is  characterized  not  only  by  analy- 
sis and  synthesis,  by  abstraction  and  generalization,  but 
by  increasing  definiteness  of  purpose,  the  at  least  vague 
recognition  of  a  common  aim  and  a  collective  struggle  to 
attain  it.  Ward  asserts  that  social  personality  was  the 
original  stimulus  to  individual  self-consciousness.  "Col- 
lective action  for  common  ends  is  the  essence  of  society, 
and  in  taking  counsel  together  for  the  good  of  the  tribe 
each  one  learns  also  to  take  counsel  with  himself  for  his 
own  good  on  the  whole  ;  with  the  idea  of  the  common 
weal  arises  the  idea  of  happiness  as  distinct  from  momen- 
tary gratification.'" 

Professor  Tufts  has  stated  the  parallel  even  more  clearly  : 

1  James  Ward  :  loc.  rit..  Vol.  XX..  p.  84. 


90  The  Social  Mind  and  F.ducation. 


"  True  it  is  that  in  individual  and  in  society  the  early  life 
is  impulsive,  unrelated,  with  little  conscious  unity  of  pur- 
pose, yet  with  language  and  religion  and  art,  with  indus- 
trial and  intellectual  cooperation,  many  a  people  has  come 
to  'know  what  it  wants,'  and  to  act  unitedly  in  order  to 
get  it."  ' 

To  sum  up,  it  may  be  asserted  that  in  their  development 
social  and  individual  thought  agree  since  they  begin  with 
an  indefinite  whole  or  "presentation  continuum,"  which 
is  gradually  differentiated  and  progressively  integrated,  at 
first  instinctively  but  later  with  increasingly  definite  pur- 
pose in  response  to  an  even  clearer  perception  of  an  ideal 
aim  or  end. 

1  American  Journal  of  Sociology ,  January,  1896,  p.  454. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE   SOCIAL    MIND    AND    EDUCATION. 

The  function  of  transmitting  from  one  generation  to 
the  next  the  contents  of  the  collective  tradition  has  itself 
been  characterized  by  increasing  social  self-consciousness. 
Beginning  in  the  haphazard  communication  of  empirical 
knowledge,  dexterities,  customs,  and  beliefs  from  parents 
to  children,  instruction  has  been  more  and  more  socialized 
and  organized  until  in  the  great  educational  systems  of 
modern  nations  societies  purposefully  seek  to  secure  the 
orderly  transmission  and  constant  enrichment  of  the  col- 
lective knowledge,  feelings,  and  volitions,  which,  realized 
in  individual  consciousness,  form  the  content  of  the  social 
mind.  In  general,  education  may  be  regarded  from  the^ 
social  point  of  view  as  a  reflective  effort  to  preserve  the 
continuity  and  to  secure  the  growth  of  the  common 
tradition.  Just  as  the  successive  states  of  consciousness  in 
the  individual  form  a  coherent  unity  with  which  self  or 
personality  is  associated,  so  society  gains  unity  and 
self- consciousness  from  a  well-organized  and  continuous 
collective  tradition  which  therefore  constitutes  the  essential 
vital  principle  of  the  social  organism. '  Since  the  social 
mind   can   exist  only  in  the  minds  of  individuals,  society 

I  Fouill^e  has  emphasized  this  view  in  application  to  a  nation  and  its  educational 
system  :  "  Le  nation  est  un  organisme  dou6  d'une  certaine  conscience  collective, 
quoique  non  concentr6e  en  un  moi ;  nous  consid6rons  done  conime  une  forme 
d'h6r6dit6  et  d'identitfi  organique  i  travers  Ics  ages  tout  ce  qui  maintient  chez  un 
peuple  une  continuity  de  caractJre,  d'esprit,  d'habitudes  et  d'aplitudes,  en  un 
mot,  une  conscience  nationale  el  une  voluiitfe  nationale.  .  .  .  A  nos  yeux,  le  but 
dernier  de  I'fiducation  est  d'assurer  non  seulenient  le  dOveloppemcnt  de  la  race, 
mais  encore  celui  de  la  nationality,  de  la  Patrie." — L' en»eignement  au  point  de  vue 
national,  p.  vit. 

91 


92  The  Social  Mind  atid  J-Lducation. 

iseeks  its  own  perpetuation  and  advancement  by  preparing 
'the  young  gradually  to  appropriate  the  collective  tradition 
in  general,  and  by  training  a  few  minds  to  receive  and 
elaborate  its  various  highly  specialized  divisions.  Thus, 
though  individuals  are  constantly  dying  and  others  are 
taking  their  places,  the  social  tradition  not  only  persists 
but  is  progressively  analyzed  and  synthesized,  growing 
ever  deeper  and  richer  in  truth,  aesthetic  and  moral  feeling, 
ideals,  and  aims.  Education  seeks,  therefore,  to  relate 
individual  consciousness  intrinsically  to  the  social  mind.' 
/The  social  organism  is  in  final  analysis  a  psychic  organism. 
It  is  usual  to  contrast  the  social  and  individual  aspects  of 
education,  often  as  though  they  were  quite  distinct  and 
even  antagonistic  points  of  view.  While  society  is  chiefly 
concerned  with  socializing  the  pupil,  the  latter  is  supposed 
to  gain  most  from  a  "development  of  his  powers."  We 
have  noted  in  a  previous  chapter  the  predominant  influ- 
ence of  the  collective  mind  upon  individual  consciousness. 
The  so-called  "powers"  or  activities  of  the  mind  are 
simply  abstractions  from  concrete  states  of  consciousness. 
These  latter  have  a  social  content.  "There  is  no  indi- 
vidual man,"  says  Professor  Tufts,  "for  ethics,  for  psy- 
chology, for  logic,  or  for  sociology,  except  by  abstraction 
— that  is  if  by  individual  man  we  mean  a  being  not 
influenced  by  social  forces — nor  are  there  any  feelings, 
thoughts,  or  volitions  in  any  man  which  are  independent 
of  such  forces."*  In  other  words,  the  individual  can 
"Exercise  his  powers  only  upon  social  materials,  and  in 
attempting  to  secure  for  himself  discipline  he  appropriates 
in  some  measure  the  social  tradition  and  may  be  the  means 
of  its  transmission  and  further  elaboration.^     The  essen- 

1  Mackenzie  :  Itiiroduction  to  Social  Philosophy ,  p.  iSo. 
-  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  January-,  1896,  p.  455. 

8  This  is  not  to  deny  that  there  are  disciplines  which  are  ot  much  more  remote 
social  value  than  others. 


The  Social  Mind  and  Education.  93 

tially  social  nature  of  education  is  being  more  and  more 
fully  recognized.  The  Culture  Epoch  theory,  at  which 
we  just  now  glanced,  is  an  illustration  in  point.  Even  Dr.  ^ 
William  T.  Harris,  who  is  naturally  and  properly  interested 
in  the  psychological  side  of  education,  has  emphatically 
declared  that  a  fundamental  educational  philosophy  must 
be  based  not  on  physiology  or  even  on  psychology,  but  on 
sociology.'  If  we  regard  the  content  of  consciousness,  the 
individual  is  almost  an  abstraction.  It  is  the  thought  of 
humanity  which  he  thinks.*  "It  is  only  through  thedev'el- 
opment  of  the  whole  race  that  any  one  man  can  develop."' 
The  harmonizing  of  the  supposed  antithesis  between 
individual  and  social  education  has  been  admirably  stated 
by  Guyau  in  these  words:  "  Pedagogy  might  be  defined 
as  the  art  of  adapting  new  generations  to  those  conditions 
of  life  which  are  the  most  intensive  and  fruitful  for  the 
individual  and  the  species.  It  has  been  asked  if  the 
object  of  education  is  individual  or  social ;  it  is  simulta- 
neously individual  and  social ;  it  is,  to  speak  accurately, 
the  search  for  means  to  bring  the  most  intensive  individual 
existence  into  harmony  with  the  most  extensive  social 
life."^     The    individual   realizes    his   own    possibilities  by 

1  Educaliimal  Review,  ]w\\^,  1893. 

»"  How  much  more  do  we  experience  when  we  travel  tlirough  ancient  Egypt 
with  Herodotus,  when  we  stroll  through  the  streets  of  Pompeii,  when  we  carry 
ourselves  back  to  the  gloomy  period  of  the  crusades,  or  to  the  golden  age  of 
Italian  art,  now  making  the  acquaintance  of  a  physician  of  MoliSre,  and  now 
that  of  a  Diderot  or  of  a  D'Alembert.  What  a  great  part  of  the  life  of  others,  of 
their  character  and  their  purpose,  do  we  not  absorb  through  poetry  and  music  ! 
.  .  .  How  great  and  comprehensive  does  self  become  in  this  conception  ;  and 
how  insignificant  the  person  !  Egoistical  systems  both  of  optimism  and  pessi- 
mism perish  with  their  narrow  standards  of  the  import  of  intellectual  life.  We 
feel  that  the  real  pearls  of  life  lie  in  the  ever-changing  contents  of  consciousness, 
and  that  the  person  is  merely  an  indifferent  symbolical  thread  on  which  they  are 
Strung." — Ernst  Mack:  Popular  Scientific  Lectures  (tr.  by  McCormack),  pp. 
234-235- 

»  Mackenzie:   loc.  cil.,  p.  180. 

4  Educaliott  and  Heredity  (tr.  by  W.  J.  Greenstreet),  pp.  xviii.,  xix. 


94  The  Social  Mind  ayid  Education. 


incorporating  in  himself  the  achievements  of  the  race  and 
he  contributes  to  social  progress  by  modifying  and  im- 
proving in  never  so  slight  a  way  the  tradition  intrusted  to 
him.  But  even  this  service  cannot  be  well  rendered  in 
isolation.  Only  by  purposeful  cooperation  are  the  best 
and  most  permanent  results  secured. 

It  has  been  shown  that  in  a  general  way  the  social  and 
the  individual  mind  develop  according  to  the  same  law — 
by  analysis  and  synthesis,  by  the  accumulation  and  organi- 
zation of  experience,  and  by  the  formation  of  ideals  from 
instinctive,  unconscious  activities  to  reflective,  purposeful, 
self-conscious  efforts.  The  value  of  this  theory  depends 
upon  the  interpretation  of  it.  The  dangers  involved  in 
the  application  of  this  principle  have  been  pointed  out  by 
Professor  Dewey,  who,  while  admitting  the  truth  of  the 
parallel  "in  a  general  way,"  insists  that  the  ontogenetic 
series  must  be  the  determining  factor  with  the  educator. 
The  phylogenetic  series  may  and  does  serve  a  useful 
purpose  in  suggesting  methods  and  in  some  measure 
materials  of  instruction,  but  the  moment  one  attempts  to 
assign  anything  like  definite,  corresponding  stages  in  the 
two  series,  and  to  reason  from  one  to  the  other,  the 
probability  is  that  the  resulting  educational  system  will  be 
largely  artificial  and  doctrinaire.' 

The  fallacy  of  relying  in  any  specific  way  upon  the 
phylogenetic  series  may  be  made  clearer  by  reference  to  a 
theory  already  mentioned,  which  has  recently  been  defi- 
nitely stated  by  Baldwin.  He  asserts  that  by  means  of 
organically  consolidated  habit  and  accommodation,  which 
may  be  perpetuated  either  through  natural  selection  solely 
or  through  the  transmission  of  acquired  characters,  certain 
organic  ' '  short-cuts ' '   may  be  effected  so  that  the  individ- 

1  Illinois  State  School  Journal,  December,  1895.    Reprinted  in  Second  Year  Book 
of  the  Herbart  Society. 


The  Social  Mind  and  Education.  95 

ual  will  omit  in  his  own  evolution  certain  elements  or  stages 
which  were  essential  in  the  development  of  his  ancestors.' 
This  point  is  further  illustrated  by  contrasting  animals  and 
men.  In  the  case  of  the  former,  if  higher  centers  of  coordi- 
nation be  removed,  in  a  short  time  the  function  will  be 
resumed  by  a  lower  center,  but  in  men,  the  connections 
having  been  established  directly  and  not  via  the  subordi- 
nate segments,  the  injury  or  removal  of  the  chief  directing 
apparatus  results  in  a  permanent  loss  of  functional  power/ 

But  there  is  still  another  though  similar  influence  at  work 
to  modify  the  strict  parallel.  In  adjustment  to  a  changing 
environment,  mental  structure  is  being  constantly  accom- 
modated or  adapted.  "  By  accommodation,  with  the  new 
adaptations  which  it  works,  old  habits  are  broken  up  and 
new  coordinations  are  made  which  are  more  complex  or 
new  organic  growths  secured  which  simplify  a  function. 
These  gains  are  again  clenched  by  heredity  or  selection 
and  constitute  further  variations  from  phylogeny.  "^ 

Baldwin  also  calls  attention  to  the  biological  theory  that 
the  course  of  development  of  the  embryo  is  dependent 
upon  the  amount  of  food,  called  "food  yolk,"  which  the 
^%<g  supplies.  It  is  asserted  that  a  plentiful  supply  hastens 
progress  toward  maturity,  i.  e.,  abbreviates  the  recapitula- 
tion process.*  This  theory  of  organic  growth  is  inter- 
preted in  terms  of  mental  life  as  follows  :  "Abundant 
food  supply  in  the  shape  of  lessons,  rich  suggestions  in  its 
social  and  educational  life,  urging  forward  in  tasks  of  mind, 
etc.,  should  give  precocious  mental  development  in  the 
sense  of  early  maturity  of  mind.  The  stages  normally 
prescribed  for  natural  growth  may   then   be  abbreviated. 

1  Menial  Development  in  the  Child  and  the  Race  (2d  Ed.),  p-  20. 
«  Ibid.,  pp.  21-22. 
»  Ibid.,  p.  23. 
4  Ibid.,  p.  29. 


96  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

The  same  effect  is  produced  also  by  accidents  of  environ- 
ment. Newsboys  and  street  gamins  become  siiarp  and 
mentally  agile  to  a  phenomenal  degree  from  their  methods 
of  life,  while  boys  reared  in  the  artificial  seclusion  and 
solitude  of  a  single  son,  educated  by  a  tutor  in  his  father's 
house,  show  the  contrary  character. ' ' ' 

We  are  justified  in  assuming,  therefore,  that  to  organic 
modifications  correspond  certain  psychical  variations  by 
which  the  individual  escapes  some  of  the  stages  through 
which  his  ancestors  passed  or  through  which  the  thinking 
of  the  race  was  compelled  to  develop.  In  view  of  these 
facts,  we  reaffirm  that  any  system  which  regards  the 
phylogenetic  series  as  a  norm  to  which  the  psychogenesis 
of  the  individual  must  conform  in  any  definite,  precise 
manner,  must  be  regarded  as  arbitrary.  Yet,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  development  of  the  race  and  that  of  the  indi- 
vidual so  clearly  correspond  in  a  general  way  that  the  facts 
of  the  social  mind  may  by  analogy  suggest  a  more  careful 
examination  of  the  ontogenetic  processes,  and  a  conse- 
quent modification  of  educational  methods.  From  the 
cognitive  point  of  veiw,  instruction  ideally  aims  to  incor- 
porate in  individual  consciousness  the  social  tradition  as  a 
generalized  whole  and  some  part  of  it  in  a  specialized  form. 
In  this  attempt,  the  educator  fully  recognizes  the  fact  that 
consciousness  is  a  growth,  not  a  receptacle  for  information, 
that  the  subjective  process  is  one  of  assimilation  and  organ- 
ization, not  merely  of  accretion  or  aggregation.  There- 
fore, he  supervises  and  directs  phenomena  of  development, 
not  those  of  manufacture.  The  aim  is  to  have  the  pupil 
reach  the  highest  intellectual  and  moral  standpoint  of  the 
race  in  the  briefest  time  and  with  the  greatest  economy  of 
effort.  This  standpoint,  however,  is  not  that  of  mere 
information,   nor  of  abstract   ' '  intellectual  power, ' '   nor  of 

ii5irf.,  pp.  32-33. 


The  Social  Mind  and  Education.  97 

useful  automatic  conduct,  but  it  involves  knowledge  incor- 
porated in  personality,  an  active  organic  growth  possess- 
ing ability  to  assimilate  new  materials  and  advance  to 
higher  organization. 

It  has  been  said  that  education  seeks  to  secure  results  in 
the  briefest  time  and  with  the  greatest  economy  of  effort. 
The  recapitulation  theory  in  any  form  requires  rapidity  of 
individual  development.  Manifestly,  even  if  all  the  phylo- 
genetic  stages  are  repeated,  some  of  them  must  at  best  be 
merely  suggested  rather  than  actually  reproduced.  The 
difficulty  of  detecting  the  stages  is  obvious  and  any  system 
dependent  upon  a  discovery  of  them  at  all  exact  is  evi- 
dently at  a  serious  disadvantage. 

Economy  of  effort  implies  cooperation  with  natural  forces 
instead  of  opposition  to  them.  It  recognizes,  e.  g.,  a 
development  of  consciousness  and  seeks  in  general  to  take 
advantage  of  its  laws,  not  to  attain  an  end  apparently  in 
violation  of  them.  If,  therefore,  an  educational  theory  be 
based  upon  detailed  and  complete  recapitulation  it  can  at 
best  only  urge  the  teacher  to  hasten  on  through  some  of 
the  stages,  but  if  it  recognize  the  possibility  of  omitting 
stages  altogether,  it  may  advise  purposeful  ' '  short-cuts 
which  neither  waste  time  nor  ignore  principles  of  growth. 
From  this  point  of  view,  the  educational  function  may  be 
described,  though  possibly  not  defined,  as  a  purposeful 
social  effort  to  effect  "short-cuts"  in  the  mental  develop- 
ment of  the  individual  as  well  as  to  hasten  the  whole 
process  so  that  he  may  in  the  briefest  time  and  in  a 
thoroughly  natural '  way  attain  the  standpoint  of  the  race, 

1  This  term  "natural"  is  one  to  conjure  with  in  educational  theory.  In  one 
sense  mental  development  will  be  natural  (/'.  e.,  in  accordance  with  the  fixed 
sequences  and  coexistences  of  psychological  phenomena)  in  any  event.  Only  the 
term  supernatural  can  describe  the  opposite  situation.  But  there  are  various 
degrees  of  resistance  which  mental  processes  offer  to  externally  directc<l  influ- 
ences. Economy  of  effort,  elimination  of  friction,  following  linesof  least  resistance, 
are  phrases  which  express  the  idea  that  one  plan  is  more"  natural  "  than  another. 


gS  The  Social  Mind  and  Ediicatio7i. 

7.    c,    be    intrinsically    related    to    the    social    tradition. 

Dr.  Paul  has  pointed  out  the  service  of  language  in 
enabling  one  individual  to  induce  at  once  in  the  mind  of 
another — who  has  the  same  sensuous  or  conceptual  ma- 
terials— an  association  which  the  former  has  spent  a  long 
time  in  organizing.  "It  is  owing  to  this  economy  of 
labor  and  time  to  which  one  individual  has  assisted 
another,  that  the  latter  is  in  his  turn  in  a  position  to 
employ  the  result  of  this  economy  to  set  up  a  further 
connection  for  which  the  first  individual  had  no  time  at  his 
disposal.'"  The  educator  methodically  modifying  the 
pupil's  environment  and,  when  language  communication 
has  been  set  up,  through  direct  suggestion,  aims  systemati- 
cally to  control  the  presentations  of  the  child's  mind  and  to 
guide  the  activity  of  self  in  conscious  association.  In 
other  words,  from  both  the  mechanical  and  volitional  sides 
of  the  mind's  operations  influences  of  abridgment  and 
omission  are  brought  to  bear. 

The  learning  of  language  illustrates  both  the  general 
parallel  and  the  ' '  short-cut ' '  theories.  It  is  true  that  the 
child  unconsciously  learns  to  speak.  "And,"  says  Paul, 
"the  case  is  much  the  same  with  the  period  in  the 
development  of  the  human  race  which  originally  created 
language."*  It  is  also  a  fact  that  the  child  employs  de- 
nominations before  verbs  and  later  still  applies  modifying 
terms,  moods,  etc.'^  The  advance  from  vagueness  to 
definiteness  of  thought  is  objectified  in  language.  In  a 
general  way,  therefore,  the  process  of  individual  growth 
in  speech  corresponds  to  the  historical  development  of  a 
language  considered  as  a  phylogenetic  series.  Again,  as 
Spencer   has  pointed  out,    consciousness  or  reflection  in 

1  Principles  of  Languages  (Strong's  tr.),  p.  xl. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  xlvi. 

3  Sully  :  Studies  of  Childhood,  pp.  170-1 82. 


The  Social  Mind  and  Education.  99 

language,  i.  e.,  the  study  of  grammar,  must  follow  its 
unconscious  acquisition.'  The  confusion  of  the  logical 
with  the  pedagogical  order — so  common  in  educational 
theory — has  its  classical  illustration  in  Pestalozzi's  plan — 
later  abandoned  by  its  author — of  beginning  with  analyti- 
cally simple  but  meaningless  syllables  which  were  subse- 
quently to  be  combined  into  significant  words.* 

It  is  one  thing  to  recognize  and  utilize  this  general 
correspondence,  but  quite  another  to  assert  complete  and 
detailed  recapitulation.  The  latter  theory  might  be  re- 
garded as  demanding  instruction  in  archaic  language  forms 
— e.  g.,  the  old  plurals  and  verb-endings  of  early  English. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  influences  of  inheritance  and  environ- 
ment introduce  factors  which  quite  change  the  situation. 
It  is  asserted  on  the  organic  side  that  by  "a  child  in- 
heriting a  direct  tendency  to  respond  to  a  visual  stimulus 
with  movements  of  the  tongue  and  larynx  would  be  saved 
the  long  course  of  development  which  has  been  necessary 
phylogenetically  for  the  establishment  of  the  direct  connec- 
tion now  very  generally  held  to  exist  between  the  visual 
and  motor  speech  centers,  with  a  corresponding  saving  on 
the  mental  side.  "^ 

From  the  objective  side,  moreover,  the  materials  for 
imitation  and  the  stimulating  and  varied  suggestions  *  of  a 
rich  social  environment  induce  a  marvelous  development 
of  speech.  The  child  of  four  or  five,  reared  in  a  cultivated 
home,   quickly  and  unconsciously  acquires  a   vocabulary 

1  "  In  short,  as  grammar  was  made  after  language,  so  ought  it  to  be  taught  after 
language;  an  influence  which  all  who  recognize  the  relationship  between  the 
evolution  of  the  race  and  of  the  individual  will  see  to  be  unavoidable." — Educa- 
tion, p.  106. 

2  IVie  Gertrud  Hire  Kinder  lehrt  (tr.  by  Holland  and  Turner),  pp.  90-9.';. 

3  Baldwin  :  Mental  Development,  p.  26. 

4  For  an  interesting  discussion  of  the  rfile  of  suggestion  in  education  if. 
Guyau  :  Education  and  Heredity  (tr.  by  W.J.  Greenstrcet),  pp.  iJ-45:  Felix 
Thomas:  La  suggestion  :  son  rfile  dans  Vtducation;  and  Baldwin:  /of.  c»/.,  109-169, 


lOO  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

and  power  of  expression  which  is  often  a  source  of  surprise 
even  to  parents.  In  so  far  as  such  acquisitions  are  chiefly 
the  result  of  imitation,  social  approval  of  others,  or  mere 
subjective  pleasure  in  rhythms  of  speech,  they  are  to  be 
deprecated  as  predominantly  verbal,  but  when  they  are 
fairly  well  coordinated  with  mental  images  developed  out 
of  perceptions,  they  stand  for  genuine  "short-cuts"  in 
mental  development  and  organic  habits.  So  much  by  way 
of  illustrating  the  respective  functions  of  the  two  theories 
which  merge  into  one.  The  recapitulation  aspect  empha- 
sizes what  the  older  education  did  not  recognize,  at  least 
with  clear  consciousness,  viz.,  that  instruction  cannot 
simply  effect  one  great  "short-cut,"  but  must  direct  a 
process  of  growth.  On  the  other  hand,  the  "short-cut" 
theory  points  out  the  danger  of  underestimating  the  possi- 
bilities of  rapid,  abbreviated  development,  and  providing 
for  ' '  stages ' '  which  have  disappeared  from  the  onto- 
genetic series.  Both  views  may  be  carried  to  extremes. 
Their  synthesis  represents  education  as  recognizing  the 
general  parallel  of  individual  and  race  development,  but 
as  also  consciously  seeking  to  take  advantage  of  all  ' '  short- 
cuts ' '  for  the  sake  both  of  the  unit  and  of  society. 

In  the  light  of  this  synthesis,  the  so-called  inductive 
and  deductive  forms  of  reasoning  assume  new  meaning. 
Professor  Dewey  has  shown  that  the  distinction  between 
these  two  processes  is  one  of  direction  rather  than  of 
essential  nature.  Both  connect  the  universal  with  the 
particular.  One  starts  with  the  particular  and  relates  it  to 
the  universal,  the  other  imposes  the  universal  on  the 
particular.  In  either  case  knowledge  is  the  result."  But 
even  though  the  results  are  similar  the  processes  differ  in 
their  demands  upon  self-activity  and  in  the  time  which 
they   require.      Inductive    reasoning    implies    experience, 

1  Psychology,  pp.  224-235- 


The  Social  Mind  a7id  Ediicatioyi.  loi 

examination  of  details,  association  by  similarity,  and, 
finally,  generalization.  An  induction  is  a  result  of  growth. 
Deduction,  on  the  other  hand,  starts  from  the  general  or 
universal  and  by  association  and  dissociation  subsumes  or 
interprets  the  particular.  Although  the  processes  are 
analytically  distinguished  they  really  involve  each  other. 
The  emphasis,  however,  is  laid  now  on  one,  now  on  the 
other. 

In  education  induction  is  advocated  by  those  who 
recognize  the  ontogenetic  and  phylogenetic  parallelism. 
Just  as  the  race  reached  its  generalizations  from  a  mass  of 
empirical  observations,  so  the  child  must  gradually  ad- 
vance through  his  own  activity  from  particulars  to  uni- 
versals.  The  Etnile^  insists  upon  this  order  of  "nature," 
and  Spencer's  Education'  is  largely  influenced  by  the 
same  idea. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  "short-cut"  theory  in  its  ex- 
treme form  relies  upon  deduction.  It  would  save  the  time 
consumed  in  reaching  generalizations.  These,  formulated 
by  the  race,  should  be  transferred  at  once  to  the  indi- 
vidual in  order  that  society  may  advance  in  knowledge. ' 

Here  we  are  confronted  again  by  the  old  antithesis. 
Individual  development  demands  gradual  growth  through 
induction  ;  social  welfare  requires  the  rapid  communica- 
tion of  the  collective  tradition  through  deduction.     Once 

1  Payne's  translation,  pp.  134-139. 
sPp.  124-125. 

3  This  does  not  mean  that  "short-cuts"  are  confined  to  deduction.  By  Ruid- 
ance  and  the  conscious  modification  of  the  environment  the  processes  of  induction 
may  be  greatly  abridged. 

Tardc's  theory  of  the  social  syllogism  is  applicable  here.  In  his  view,  the 
knowledge,  judgments,  and  decisions  of  the  rate  form  major  premises,  i.  e., 
general  scientific  principles,  maxims,  rules  of  conduct,  etc.  The  m.ijor  premises 
are  imposed  upon  individuals  who  supply  out  of  personal  experiences  the  minor 
premises  and  hence  reach  conclusions.  All  conduct,  therefore,  is  the  resultant  of 
generalized  race  experience  and  indi\idual  apj)lications.  Society  seeks  to  extend 
these  majors  as  quickly  as  possible  to  all  individuals.— /.a  logiqur  socia/r, pp.  53-61. 


I02  TJic  Social  AUnd  and  Edtication. 

more  we  may  reconcile  these  apparently  antagonistic 
iheories  by  asserting  that  together  they  are  able  to  satisfy 
the  requirements  for  both  genetic  development  and  for 
"short-cuts."'  In  the  earlier  period  chief  emphasis  may 
be  laid  on  induction,  but  with  the  growth  of  self-activity 
and  consciousness,  deductive  "short-cuts"  may  be  eco- 
nomically introduced.^ 

Assuming,  then,  that  for  the  first  few  years  of  childhood 
the  inductive  process  must  in  the  nature  of  things  pre- 
dominate, we  may  ask  what  problem  first  confronts  the 
teacher.  To  introduce  formal  studies  would  be  to  impose 
deduction.  As  we  have  seen,  it  has  required  centuries  of 
thinking  by  the  race  to  elaborate  these  divisions  of  the 
social  tradition.  Here  the  phylogenetic  series  suggests 
that  the  vague  unity  of  primitive  man's  environment  corre- 
sponds to  the  undifferentiated  presentation  continuum  of 
the  infant.  Both  have  to  be  analyzed  and  synthesized  into 
more  and  more  definite  details  and  ever  higher  unities. 
The  original  unity  is  social  life,  even  though  it  be  merely 

1  Prof.  W.  N.  Hailman  has  elaborated  this  idea  in  a  paper  on  Organic  Relations 
of  Studies  in  Human  Development,  in  which  he  distinguishes  "developing 
instruction"  and  "didactic  instruction,"  and  discusses  the  function  of  each. 
The  former  he  recommends  for  the  earlier  period,  while  he  would  put  chief 
reliance  on  the  second  for  the  later  stages  of  grammar  and  high  school.— Reprint 
from  Proceedings  of  the  Jacksonville  Conference  on  Superintendence,  pp.  10-13. 

2  Lester  F.  Ward  urges  the  deductive  or  "short-cut"  theor>- in  these  words  : 
"The  idea  that  children  in  this  enlightened  age  must  go  back  to  the  ages  of 
barbarism  and  grope  along  as  their  ancestors  were  compelled  to  do  for  crumbs  of 
knowledge,  that  they  must  be  allowed  to  get  all  kinds  of  errors  into  their  minds 
along  with  a  few  truths  because  this  was  the  method  by  which  the  primitive  man 
first  acquired  ideas,  .  .  .  this  entire  scheme  for  converting  education  into  a 
sort  of  social  ontogenesis  is  false  in  principle,  is  not  supported  by  any  proper 
interpretation  of  the  teachings  of  science,  and  is  directly  opposed  to  those 
furnished  by  every  progressive  step  in  the  civilization  of  the  race. 

"  Nothing  is  calculated  more  forcibly  to  impress  upon  us  the  conviction  that  the 
mass  of  mankind  must  get  their  knowledge  through  instruction  and  not  through 
experience,  nor  yet  through  personal  observation  and  research,  than  to  note  how 
such  great  minds  as  those  of  Copeniicus,  Kepler,  Galileo,  Bacon,  and  Newton 
groped  about  in  darkness  and  doubt  respecting  the  questions  of  planetary  revolu- 
tion, tides,  gravitation,  light,  etc.,  with  which  every  schoolboy  is  now  familiar." — 
Dynamic  Sociology,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  62S-629. 


The  Social  Mind  and  Education.  103 


the  microcosm  of  the  nursery  or  the  family  circle.  This 
presentation  continuum  and  the  potential  activity  of 
the  child  are  the  factors  out  of  which  gradually  by  action 
and  reaction  are  evolved  a  universe  and  a  self-conscious 
personality.'  The  stimulus  of  sensations  arouses  the 
activity  of  self,  which,  little  by  little,  acquires  experi- 
ence and  progressively  interprets  and  reinterprets  the 
objective  world,  gaining  at  the  same  time  clearer  knowl- 
edge of  its  own  nature.  Yet  at  the  basis  of  all  this  mental 
activity  lie  sensations,  actual  physically  mediated  raw 
materials  out  of  which  the  products  of  thought  are  elabo- 
rated.' Sensations  are  wholly  individual  facts.  They 
may  be  in  a  large  measure  controlled  by  artificial  external 
arrangements,  but  they  cannot  be  dispensed  with.  Each 
individual  must  therefore  work  over,  interpret,  and  assimi- 
late his  own  sensations.^  Clearness  can  come  only  from 
differentiation.  Education,  or  rather  instruction,  has  for 
its  primary  task  not  the  teaching  of  subjects  but  the  forma- 
tion of  subjects  or  studies  in  the  pupil's  consciousness.  It 
must  help  him  to  take  apart  the  vague  unity  of  his  life,  to 
associate,  dissociate,  identify,  and  discriminate  as  he  forms 
ideal  groups  and  makes  generalizations.  It  is  only  when 
this  process  has  been  carried  to  a  certain  point  that  the 
idea  of  studies  and  disciplines,  evolved  out  of  race  ex- 
perience, can  be  assimilated  by  the  self.  Verbal  memory 
may  deceive  the  superficial  observer  in  this  regard,  but 
the  laws  of  thought  cannot  be  violated.  It  is  in  recog- 
nition of  this  principle  that  the  new  primary  education 
purposely  avoids  prematurely  superimposing  the  logical 
differentiations  of  the  social  mind  u[)on  its  pupils,  but 
rather  seeks  to  aid  them  in  reaching  by  their  own  efforts 

1  Dewey  :  Psychology ,  pp.  4  and  5. 

t  Ibid.,  p.  81. 

»  Preyer  :  In/ant  Afind  (Ir.  by  Brown),  pp.  66-69. 


I04  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

the  idea  of  division  and  classification.  With  the  further 
development  of  self-consciousness  the  conception  of  studies 
is  readily  assimilated  and  the  whole  self,  vigorous  from  its 
earlier  activities,  reacts  effectively  and  economically  upon 
new  materials,  more  than  making  up  for  the  time  appar- 
ently "lost"  during  the  period  of  predominant  sensation 
and  spontaneous  discovery. 

The  function  of  interest  in  education  is  being  more  and 
more  clearly  perceived.  Under  its  influence  the  organiza- 
tion and  interpretation  of  sense-impressions  goes  on  rapidly 
in  the  earlier  years.  Childish  interest  concerns  itself  not 
with  abstract  or  formal  pursuits  which  imply  a  relatively 
considerable  development  of  self-consciousness,  but  rather 
with  the  immediate  concrete  facts  of  the  environment, 
with  daily  life.  In  seeking  to  find  expression  for  its  own 
activity  the  child  gradually  associates  and  generalizes  these 
phenomena,  utilizing  this  knowledge  for  its  own  purposes. 
It  speaks  without  consciousness  of  language,  counts  with 
no  thought  of  mathematics  ;  walks,  works,  builds  houses, 
dams  rivulets  in  complete  ignorance  of  mechanics  and 
physics  ;  watches  birds  and  gathers  flowers  with  never  a 
notion  that  these  are  kinds  of  knowledge  labeled  orni- 
thology and  botany.  For  him  life  is  a  whole,  a  vague 
and  indefinite  unity,  which  he  daily  takes  apart  and  puts 
together,  gradually  reading  into  it  a  deeper  meaning  as  he 
perceives  wider  relations  of  likeness  and  sharper  degrees  of 
difference.  It  usually  happens  at  about  the  period  when 
this  world  unity  is  just  beginning  to  display  more  or  less 
clearly  defined  parts  that  the  child  is  sent  to  school  where 
subjects  are  thrust  upon  him  and  his  universe  divided  up 
into  study  periods  and  text-books.  Then  life  is  taken 
apart  indeed  and  happy  is  the  pupil  who  can  perceive 
some  vague  connection  between  the  things  he  has  loved 
out  of  doors  and  the  subjects  which  he  pursues  in  the' 


The  Social  Mind  and  Education.  105 


schoolroom.'  This  critical  period  during  which  the  trans- 
ition from  spontaneous  discrimination  to  logical  division 
takes  place  has  been  too  much  neglected.  Object  lessons 
and  observation  classes  have  by  no  means  solved  the  prob- 
lem. Here  it  is  that  the  theory  of  parallelism  may  render 
service  by  at  least  compelling  the  "short-cut"  process  to 
prove  that  conditions  are  ripe  for  the  introduction  of  the 
latter.  The  gradual  development  of  consciousness  is  also 
a  factor  to  be  considered.  Only  as  the  self  becomes  more 
definitely  aware  of  its  own  activity  in  relation  to  the 
objective  world  of  things  and  men,  and  gains  fixity  of 
purpose  can  it  really  grasp  the  more  abstract  and  system- 
atic forms  of  thought. 

The  very  fact  of  growth,  therefore,  demands  that  this 
transition  from  vague  unity  to  logical  partition,  from  un- 
conscious interest  to  self-determining  effort,  should  extend 
over  a  long  period  and  be  achieved  gradually  and  natu- 
rally. Attempts  to  force  the  process  m^y  result  in  apparent 
success,  but  only  at  a  real  ultimate  sacrifice.  The  facile 
use  of  words  without  ideas  is  the  clatter  of  machinery  in  a 
factory  in  which  raw  materials  are  scanty  and  poor.  There 
may  be  sounds  of  activity,  but  the  product  will  be  disap- 
pointing. So  the  premature  forcing  of  formal  instruction 
to  the  neglect  of  sense-impressions  and  their  spontaneous 
elaboration  is  barren  in  its  results.  It  violates  the  laws  of 
ontogenesis  in  an  effort  unduly  to  hasten  the  j)upirs  de- 
velopment toward  the  maturity  of  the  race. 

The  task  of  differentiation  then  is  the  primary  under- 
taking of  instruction.    The  pupil  begins,  as  we  have  already 

1  "  The  young  c\\\\A  feels  Ihe  oneness  of  nature  and  of  life.  'The  nursery  is 
the  place  where  study  is  most  general  and  universal'  (President  Hyde).  To  the 
six-year-old  pupil  the  division  of  study  into  subjects  has  only  just  begun. 
Zoology,  botany,  meteorology,  geolog>-,  agriculture,  liorticullurc,  astronomy,  etc., 
all  commence  in  the  undifferentiated  form  of  nature  study." — Herman  T.  Lukens: 
"The  Correlation  of  Studies,"  Educational  Review,  November,  1895. 


io6  The  Social  Mmd  and  Ediccation. 


insisted,  with  life  as  a  whole,  an  indefinite  unity  out  of 
which  logical  divisions  are  gradually  to  be  discriminated, 
until  differences  are  clearly  apprehended.  Then  these  are 
to  be  recombined  ultimately  into  a  deeper  and  richer  con- 
ception or  philosophy  of  the  nature  and  end  of  society.  In 
over-eagerness  to  impress  the  child  with  the  varied  ele- 
ments of  knowledge  education  has  sought  in  the  past  and 
is  still  attempting  to  superimpose  an  already  specialized 
curriculum  instead  of  helping  the  child  gradually  to  differ- 
entiate the  environment  for  himself.  In  the  latter  way  the 
transition  may  be  made  naturally  and  easily  as  a  result 
of  the  pupil's  own  activity.  In  describing  the  relation 
of  analysis  and  synthesis  Professor  Dewey  says  :  ' '  The 
analytic  recognition  of  separate  elements  is  a  later  process. 
Psychologically,  the  synthesis  precedes  analysis."'  The 
mistake  has  been  made  of  trying  prematurely  to  force 
a  logical  analysis  and  of  neglecting  synthesis  altogether. 
The  child  not  only  suffers  from  this  artificial  process  of 
division,  but  in  his  own  instinctive  efforts  to  preserve  his 
personality  performs  alone  and  unaided  the  acts  of  syn- 
thesis with  great  waste  of  energy  and  distraction  of  mind. 
The  danger  arising  from  forced  analysis  and  the  mental 
isolation  of  elements  or  studies  has  not  escaped  the  atten- 
tion of  educators.  Plans  for  concentration,  coordination, 
and  correlation  have  been  advanced  with  the  aim  of  cor- 
recting the  evils  involved  in  breaking  up  the  unity  of  life 
and  thought  into  separated  fragments.  "  Bring  all  things 
essentially  related  to  each  other  to  that  connection  in  your 
mind  which  they  have  in  nature,"*  wrote  Pestalozzi.  Yet 
this  might  be  regarded  as  aiming  at  an  ultimate  or  philo- 
sophical unity — the  end  rather  than  the  beginning  or  mid- 
dle of  the  process. 

1  Psychology ,  p.  99. 

2  Wit  Gerttnid  Hire  Kinder  lehrt,  p.  78. 


The  Social  Mind  and  Education.  107 


Herbart  insisted  that  the  threads  of  thought  (  Gedanken- 
fdden)  should  be  spun  into  a  single  cord,  instead  of  being 
isolated  in  the  mind  by  an  arbitrary  and  artificial  educa- 
tional system  which  at  the  stroke  of  the  bell  introduces  a 
new  and  unrelated  subject. ' 

Ziller,  like  Herbart,  laid  stress  upon  the  ethical  value  of 
unified  thought/  Rein  also  points  out  that  the  person 
is  a  developing  entity,  that  the  ego  does  not  originally 
possess  unity  but  attains  it  in  so  far  as  the  circle  of 
thought  is  organized,  not  disconnected.'  The  synthetic 
activity  of  the  youthful  mind  cannot  be  relied  upon  to 
establish  connections  spontaneously  between  manifold  and 
varied  ideas.  Instruction  must  specifically  aim  therefore 
to  aid  the  pupil  in  attaining  unity  of  consciousness,  which 
is  the  primitive  foundation  of  character.^  The  idea  that 
synthesis  must  accompany  analysis  in  the  normal  devel- 
opment of  thought  has  been  carefully  worked  out  in 
different  systems  to  which  the  names  concentration,  corre- 
lation, and  coordination  have  been  applied.*  We  are 
concerned  not  so  much  with  the  details  of  these  plans  as 
to  discover  whether  they  have  anything  in  common  aside 
from  the  very  general  theory  already  indicated. 

Concentration,  which  may  be  regarded  as  the  original 
Herbartian  proposal,  demands  the  subordination  of  various 
pursuits  to  one  or  more  studies  or  "centers."  Rein 
distinguishes  two  spheres  of  knowledge  :  ( i )  Life  of  Man, 
and   (2)    Life  of  Nature,    or  culture  studies  and  science 

1  Psychologie ,  2W\\  Teil. 

2"  Durch  Konzeiilration  sorgt  der  Erziehungs-unterricht  immcr  fiir  das  Dasein 
und  die  Erhaltung  der  Einheil  dcs  Bewussteiiis,  d.  h.,  der  Personlichkeil,  bei  dem 
Zogliiige,  uiid  das  ist  eiiie  wesenlliche  N'orausselzung  fur  Sittlichkeit  und  Glau- 
ben . "  — A  llgemeine  Pddagogik. 

8  Outlines  of  Pedagogics  (tr.  by  C.  C.  and  I.  J.  \'an  Liew),  p.  103. 

<  Ibid.,  p.  104. 

6  Cf.  article  by  H.  T.  Lulccns  on  "  The  Correlation  of  Studies,"  Educational  Re- 
view, November,  1895. 


io8  The  Social  Alind  and  Education. 

studies.  They  are  to  be  related  by  means  of  geography 
primarily  and  the  second  group  is  to  be  subordinated  to 
the  first.  Both  are  designed  to  educate  the  will  of  the 
pupil  who  "must  acquire  (i)  an  understanding  of  the 
limitations  and  aids  that  are  based  upon  the  ethical  ideas, 
(2)  an  understanding  of  the  limitations  and  aids  that 
depend  upon  the  relations  of  things  in  nature."'  In  other 
words,  the  pupil  brings  these  two  groups  as  aids  in  inter- 
preting life.  Other  Herbartians  insist  upon  regarding 
certain  studies  as  themselves  "centers"  of  concentration 
to  which  the  remainder  of  the  subjects  must  be  related. 
F.  A.  McMurray,  a  prominent  representative  of  this  view, 
holds  that  literature  in  the  earlier  years  and  history  in  the 
upper  grades  are  the  real  centers  to  which  the  whole 
curriculum  must  be  adjusted.  It  is  somewhat  difficult  to 
conceive  of  any  study — an  abstraction — as  having  art  ap- 
parently objective  existence  in  the  sense  that  other  subjects 
are  related  to  it.  This  is  to  speak  legitimately  enough 
but  nevertheless  in  figures.  We  recall  the  protest  of  Dr. 
Paul  against  the  notion  that  parts  of  the  "social  mind" 
react  upon  each  other.  ^  All  relating  of  ideas  is  effected 
in  individual  consciousness.  Professor  McMurray  would 
surely  admit  that  he  uses  the  terms  figuratively  to  describe 
processes  which  take  place  in  the  pupil's  mind.  More- 
over, some  misapprehension  may  arise  from  the  application 
of  the  term  "study"  to  any  arbitrary  group  which  has 
been  formed  for  purposes  of  classification  or  instruction. 
There  is  a  vast  difference  between  an  analytic  study  like 
physics  and  a  synthetic  study  such  as  literature.  Litera- 
ture is  in  one  view  a  social  product,  a  reaction  of  an  indi- 
vidual representing  social  forces  against  an  environment 
of  nature  and  man  ;  it  is  a  reproduction  or  idealization  of 

1  Outlines  of  Pedagogics  (tr.  by  C.  C.  and  I.  J.  Van  Liew),  p.  113. 

2  Supra,  p.  6S. 


The  Social  Mind  and  Education.  109 

life  in  some  of  its  manifold  aspects.  History  is  a  more 
reflective  picture  of  society  conceived  as  developing  in 
time.  To  assert,  therefore^  that  literature  and  history  are 
centers  of  concentration  is  simply  to  declare  indirectly  that 
social  life  is  the  external  unity  to  which  the  self-active 
personality  is  all  the  while  adjusting  itself.  In  other  words, 
there  must  be  constant  return  to  the  center,  the  presenta- 
tion continuum  out  of  which  studies  have  been  differen- 
tiated. 

Another  plan  may  be  described  as  coordination.  This 
regards  studies  as  naturally  forming  themselves  into 
groups  or  "cores,"  no  one  of  which  is  subordinate  to  the 
rest.  All  are  of  equal  importance  and  cooperate  to 
produce  a  symmetrical  "circle  of  thought."  President 
DeGarmo  stands  for  this  scheme.  He  proposes  three 
groups  :  (i)  the  humanistic,  having  an  ethical  content  in 
literature  and  history,  (2)  the  nature  group,  and  (3)  the 
economic,  dealing  with  man  and  nature  in  interaction. ' 
These  three  ' '  cores ' '  are  described  as  lying  parallel  and 
somewhat  independent.  They  may  be  coordinated  by 
means  of  reading  in  the  form  of  literature  or,  better  still, 
by  geography,  which  in  its  three  forms,  political,  physical, 
and  commercial,  constitutes  a  bond  of  unity.  The  latter 
phase,  indeed,  gives  the  pupil  "not  only  ...  an 
enlarged  conception  of  his  own  place  and  function  in  the 
world,  but  he  learns  practically  the  great  ethical  lesson 
that  every  part  of  the  world,  and  every  man  in  every  part, 
is  trying  to  serve  self  through  service  to  others.""'  Clearly 
the  attempt  to  combine  knowledge  of  man,  of  nature,  and 
of  man  in  reaction  with  nature,  is  a  recognition  of  the 
unity  of  social  life,  an  effort  to  put  back  the  elements  of 
analysis  into  a  more  complete  conception  of  reality.     The 

1  Herharl  and  the  Herbatiians,  p.  243. 

2  Ibid,  p.  255. 


no  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

real  "core"  then  is  life,  the  point  of  departure  for  all 
studies,  the  center  to  which  all  return  with  their  constantly 
increasing  contributions. 

The  Report  of  the  Committee  of  Fifteen  on  "The  Corre- 
lation of  Studies"  is  disappointing  in  that  it  offers  no  very- 
definite  plan.  Its  proposal  has  been  described  as  "inter- 
relation of  studies."'  Yet  on  the  whole  it  emphasizes  the 
social  aspect  of  education  in  a  marked  way.  "In  a 
word,"  reads  the  report,  "the  chief  consideration  to 
which  all  others  are  to  be  subordinated,  in  the  opinion  of 
your  committee,  is  this  requirement  of  the  civilization  into 
which  the  child  is  born,  as  determining  not  only  what  he 
shall  study  in  school,  but  what  habits  and  customs  he 
shall  be  taught  in  the  family  before  the  school  age  arrives  ; 
as  well  as  that  he  shall  acquire  a  skilled  acquaintance  with 
some  one  of  a  definite  series  of  trades,  professions,  or 
vocations  in  the  years  that  follow  school ;  and  furthermore, 
that  this  question  of  the  relation  of  the  pupil  to  his  civiliza- 
tion determines  what  political  duties  he  shall  assume  and 
what  religious  faith  or  spiritual  aspirations  shall  be 
adopted  for  the  conduct  of  his  life."'  The  report  regards 
language  as  forming  the  center  of  instruction  in  the  ele- 
mentary school,  but  urges  that  more  stress  be  laid  on  the 
meaning  of  words  and  recommends  the  use  of  literary 
selections  which  "portray  situations  of  the  soul  or  scenes 
of  life  or  elaborated  reflections."^  That  is,  which  help  the 
child  to  interpret  himself  and  his  environment,  by  bringing 
all  he  learns  to  bear  upon  life.  Geography  is  also  regarded 
as  extremely  useful.  Its  study  should  begin  with  the  pupil's 
immediate  environment  and  thence  work  out  into  wider 
relations.     The  "predominance  of  the  human  feature  in  a 

1  H.  T.  Lukens  :  "Correlation  of  Studies,"  Educational  Rn-irtc,  November,  1895. 

2  Report  of  the  Committee  of  Fifteen  on  "  The  Correlation  of  Studies  "  (anno- 
tated by  George  P.  Brown),  p.  5. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  13. 


The  Social  Mind  and  Educatioyi. 


study  ostensibly  relating  to  physical  nature ' '  is  considered 
' '  necessary  and  entirely  justifiable. ' ' '  This  pursuit  is 
further  defended  as  affording  opportunities  to  study  differ- 
ences in  climate  and  products,  the  unifying  function  of 
commercial  intercourse,  and  as  impressing  the  youthful 
mind  with  the  law  of  economic  and  social  interdependence. 

Still  another  scheme  is  that  of  Colonel  Parker,  who  re- 
gards the  child  as  the  center  on  whom  the  various  sciences, 
conceived  in  a  somewhat  Comtean  hierarchy,  converge.* 
McMurray  has  made  the  point  that  to  call  the  child  the 
center  is  either  meaningless  or  a  truism.  He  would 
regard  a  study  such  as  literature  or  history  as  the  center.' 
But  we  have  already  seen  that  this  is  an  indirect  approach 
to  the  view  of  social  life  as  the  real  objective  unity  to 
which  the  self  is  related  by  its  own  activity.  Colonel 
Parker's  theory  is  therefore  only  another  way  of  saying 
that  all  studies  must  be  related  and  unified  in  the  pupil's 
consciousness,  i.  e.,  must  be  transformed  from  elements  of 
analysis  into  a  synthesis  which  will  present  a  more  definite 
conception  of  life. 

In  a  recent  article  on  the  "Correlation  of  Science  and 
History,"  Prof.  W.  S.  Jackman  has  contended  for  a 
theory  which  is  closely  related  to  the  present  discussion. 
"The  pupil's  relations  to  his  own  community  life,"  he 
declares,  "are  the  basis  for  history,  as  his  relations  to  his 
immediate  physical  environment  are  the  basis  for  science. 
No  correlation  of  the  two  subjects  is  possible  if  in  science 
the  children  are  to  live  in  the  present  and  in  history  they 
are  to  dwell  in  the  past.  Immediate  life  for  imtnediate 
purposes  must  be  the  motto  for  both."*     In  other  words, 

1  Ibid.,  pp.  28-29. 

2  Talks  on  Pedagogics,  Diagram  and  Chapter  1. 

3  F.  A.  McMurray  :  First  Herbartian  Year  Book,  p.  50. 

4  Educational  Review,  May,  1895. 


u 


112  The  Social  Mi7id  and  Education. 

to  reiterate  our  position,  the  present  social  environment, 
including  man,  nature,  and  these  two  factors  in  interaction, 
is  the  unity  which  the  pupil  must  gradually  differentiate 
into  classes  of  phenomena.  This  environment  becomes 
thus  the  point  of  departure  for  mental  excursions  in  both 
time  and  space.  The  difficulty  at  first  is  in  enabling  the 
young  mind  to  form  these  classes,  to  leave  the  immediate 
here  and  now.  When  once  this  has  been  accomplished, 
however,  quite  another  problem  presents  itself,  namely, 
how  are  these  classes  to  be  combined  and  interrelated  ? 
All  attempts  to  meet  this  last  difficulty  resolve  themselves, 
as  we  have  seen,  in  spite  of  differences  of  detail,  into  an 
effort  to  restore  the  abstracted  factors  to  their  places  in  the 
community  life  of  which  the  pupil  is  an  organic  part. 

Before  leaving  this  subject  it  is  important  to  discriminate 
between  the  unity  of  life  as  it  appears  to  the  young  mind 
and  the  ultimate  systematized  and  philosophical  concep- 
tion of  mature  thought.  Colonel  Parker's  plan  of  concen- 
tration has  been  criticised  as  requiring  a  philosopher  as  a 
teacher  and  a  child  philosopher  as  a  pupil.  Whether  this 
be  just  or  not  in  the  circumstances,  it  calls  attention  to  the 
danger  of  attempting  to  force  prematurely  a  philosophical 
conception  upon  a  young  mind.  As  the  self  develops  and 
becomes  conscious  of  sustaining  wider  and  wider  relations 
to  nature  and  men,  the  conception  of  the  objective  world 
grows  from  a  vague  blank  whole,  and  finally  should 
attain  a  highly  differentiated  yet  closely  integrated  unity. 
Between  these  extremes  are  many  causally  related  stages  of 
development.  It  is  impossible  for  the  pupil  to  be  con- 
scious of  the  final  end,  but  the  educator  must  see  to  it 
that  each  stage  of  growth  is  a  step  toward  that  end.  The 
ideal  teacher  should  be  a  philosopher  and  consciously, 
purposefully  stimulate  and  guide  the  development  of  the 
pupil  into  a  philosopher. 


77/1?  Social  Mind  and  Education.  113 

This  philosophical  conception  as  an  ideal  in  the  higher 
education  has  been  vaguely  recognized  but  as  yet  no  one 
has  proposed  a  definite  scheme  for  what  may  be  described, 
not  as  the  correlation  but  as  the  integration  of  studies. 
The  service  which  modern  social  philosophy  may  render 
in  unifying  the  higher  education  remains  to  be  discussed  in 
our  final  chapter. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    INTEGRATION    OF    STUDIES. 

"I  AIM,"  says  one  of  our  prominent  American  scholars, 

"to  keep  one  truth  before  the  student,  viz.:  that  he  can- 
not leave  out  of  the  consideration  those  problems  and 
convictions  which  belong  to  philosophy  without  overlook- 
ing that  spiritual  bond  without  which  our  science  is  a 
fragmentary  thing  and  life  can  have  neither  wisely  chosen 
ideals,  nor  a  rational  faith  to  support  and  strengthen  it. " ' 
Dr.  William  T.  Harris  long  ago  insisted  that  philosophical 
studies  should  be  a  required  part  of  the  college  curriculum, 
that  they  should  be  introduced  early  as  an  organizing, 
unifying  influence  and  continued  uninterruptedly  to  the 
end  of  the  course.^  It  is  not  difficult  to  trace  his  thought 
also  in  such  allusions  in  the  Report  of  the  Committee  of 
Fifteen  as  that  to  "a  deeper  correlation  such  as  is  found 
in  all  parts  of  human  learning  by  the  studies  of  the  college 
and  university."  The  Greeks  have  given  us  the  ideal  of 
philosophy  as  a  whole  which  is  interpreted  for  our  genera- 
tion in  these  words  :^ 

"  There  is  no  such  thing  as  intellectual  isolation.  The  worker 
in  each  domain  should  cultivate  the  power  of  viewing  knowledge 
as  a  whole  and  of  discovering  the  bond  of  unity  between  the 
several  parts.  From  one  department  of  learning,  light  is  flashed 
back  in  unexpected  ways  upon  another,  and  studies  which  have 
long  seemed  unrelated  recognize  one  another  on  a  sudden  as 

1  Quoted  from  a  private  letter  in  an  article  by  A.  C.  Armstrong,  "  Philosophy  in 
American  Colleges,"  Educational  Revie-u;,  }a.n\x3Lry,  1897. 

2  Nineteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  St.  Louis  Public 
Schools  (1872-73),  p.  80. 

3  Ed.  annotated  by  George  P.  Brown,  p.  57. 

J 14 


The  Integration  of  Studies.  115 

sister  sciences.  .  .  .  We  must  strive  in  the  multiplicity  of 
sciences  to  apprehend  the  common  principles  of  knowledge,  and 
to  keep  the  parts  in  just  subordination  to  the  conception  of  the 
whole. "^ 

For  several  years  an  interesting  educational  experiment 
has  been  in  progress  in  the  "Edinburgh  Summer  School 
of  Art  and  Science,"  of  which  Professor  Patrick  Geddes  is 
the  head.  From  the  very  first  the  attempt  has  been  ' '  to 
work  toward  an  educational  synthesis — an  organization  of 
knowledge — and  this  not  merely  theoretically  but  practi- 
cally considered."*  This  summer  meeting  is  declared  to 
express  a  growing  effort  to  bring  together  specialists  of 
various  kinds  who  are  in  sympathy  with  each  other  and 
with  a  general  aim  toward  order  and  synthesis  of  knowl- 
edge.^ "Ideas  must  be  orchestrated  and  not  exist  as  innu- 
merable solos  "*  strikes  the  keynote  of  this  ideal. 

From  the  New  University  of  Brussels  comes  a  similar 
theory:  "Toute  education,"  declares  De  Greef,  "doit 
recevoir  son  courronnement  moral,  social,  phi- 
losophique  ;  tout  homme,  en  un  mot,  doit  se  former  finale- 
ment  un  conception  synthetique  et  rationelle  du  monde 
physique,  moral  et  social,  c'est-a-dire  philosophie."* 

Fouill^e  urges  a  reorganization  of  higher  education  in 
France  as  necessary  to  the  preservation  of  the  national 
genius.  He  deprecates  the  conflicts  and  antagonisms 
between  the  so-called  humanities  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
natural  sciences  on  the  other,"  and  he  strenuously  de- 
mands the  recognition  of  philosophical  and  social  studies 
as  the  means  by  which  harmony  may  be  established  among 

1  S.  H.  Butcher :  Some  Aspects  of  the  Greek  Genius,  2d  Ed.,  p.  243. 

2  Prospectus  of  the  Fifth  Session  of  a  Summer  School  of  Art  and  Science 
(i89i),p.  5- 

«  The  Interpreter,  August  4,  1896. 

*  Ibid.,  August  5. 

e  V enseignement  integral  et  la  philosophie  positive,  p.  27. 

C  V enseignement  au  point  de  vue  national,  p.  z. 


Ii6  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

the  various  pursuits.  These  synthetic  studies  ought,  he 
declares,  "  vivifier  ainsi  I'organisme  tout  entier.'" 

Citations  need  not  be  multiplied  to  prove  that  there  is  a 
more  or  less  widespread  conviction  that  in  some  fashion 
the  higher  education  should  exercise  a  unifying  function 
and  put  its  students  in  the  way  of  looking  at  knowledge  as 
a  whole.  Yet  just  how  this  shall  be  done  is  a  very  different 
matter.  The  moment  men  begin  to  put  a  content  into 
this  purely  formal  principle,  the  condition  of  educational 
aims  and  ideals  seems  at  once  to  be  chaotic.  Literature, 
language,  history,  psychology,  ethics,  theology,  the  history 
of  philosophy,  political  economy  are  variously  urged  as 
the  pursuits  best  adapted  to  the  purpose.  While  at  first 
thought  the  very  number  of  these  solutions  gives  the 
impression  of  almost  hopeless  disagreement,  further  con- 
sideration discloses  the  fact  that  there  is  unconscious 
groping  toward  essentially  the  same  ideal.  The  task  of 
those  who  are  interested  in  the  higher  education — in 
liberal  studies  —  is  to  bring  this  common  purpose  into 
social  consciousness,  that  is,  to  give  it  greater  precision 
and  to  show  how  the  various  pursuits  stand  related  to  it. 

To  discuss  one  division  of  the  curriculum  apart  from  the 
rest  is  more  or  less  to  make  abstraction.  We  have,  how- 
ever, traced  the  influences  which  are  at  work  to  maintain 
in  natural  unity  in  the  pupil's  consciousness  the  studies  of 
the  elementary  school,  and  we  have  noted  a  similar  effort 
in  secondary  education,  so  that  in  examining  the  college 
course  we  are  not  wholly  neglecting  its  relation  to  the  rest 
of  the  system.  It  is  assumed  that  those  who  enter  higher 
educational  institutions  will  have  been  prepared  in  some 
measure  to  look  at  things  in  a  consciously  synthetic  way. 

It  will  aid  us  in  approaching  the  subject  to  recall  the 
demands  which  society  may  be  conceived  as  making  upon 

1  Ibid.,  p.  365. 


The  Integration  of  Sttidies.  117 

the  individual  through  the  process  of  education.     These 
may  be  enumerated  as  : 

1.  A  demand  that  the  individual  exercise  and  develop 
his  capacities  to  such  an  extent  that  he  shall  be  able  to 
"see  straight  and  clear;  to  compare  and  infer;  to  make 
an  accurate  record ;  to  remember ;  to  express  thought 
with  precision,'"  and  to  have  the  body  under  conscious 
control. 

2.  That  by  means  of  language  and  other  symbols  the 
individual  incorporate  in  his  consciousness,  so  far  as  may 
be,  the  most  general  knowledge  of  his  race,  his  nation, 
and  his  community. 

3.  That  the  individual  possess  himself  in  the  fullest 
way  of  some  part  of  the  social  tradition,  either  rational  and 
aesthetic  knowledge  or  manual  dexterity  or  technical  skill. 

4.  That  the  individual  contribute  something  by  way  of 
rectifying  or  enriching  the  collective  inheritance  of  knowl- 
edge, skill,  taste,  and  ethical  idealism. 

5.  That  the  individual  recombine  and  elevate  in  his 
own  personality  the  deepest  truths  and  best  ideals  of  the 
race  and  nation  in  such  a  way  that  his  conduct  may  be 
both  wise  and  ethical,  i.  e.,  in  harmony  with  the  best 
interests  of  society  and  of  his  own  nature. 

Such  in  general  terms  are  the  formal  ends  of  education 
thought  of  as  a  social  function,  performed  not  by  the 
school  alone,  but  by  the  family,  the  church,  the  state, 
social  intercourse,  and  industrial  institutions  in  cooperation 
with  the  more  specifically  recognized  educational  sys- 
tem.' 

In  examining  any  one  of  these  agencies  it  is  proper  to 
test  its  methods  by  the  criteria  outlined  above,  bearing  in 

1  President  Charles  Eliot:  "The  Unity  of  Educational  Reform,"  The  Educa- 
tional Review,  October,  1K94. 

«  W.  T<  Harris:  Report  0/ the  Commissioner  of  Education,  1S92-93,  Vol.  11.,  p. 
1460. 


ii8  The  Social  Mind  ayid  Education. 

mind,  however,  that  the  work  of  one  part  is  intimately, 
organically  related  to  the  services  rendered  by  all  the 
rest,  and  that  at  different  stages  in  the  process  or  with 
different  institutions  more  stress  is  to  be  laid  on  some  one 
requirement  than  upon  the  others. 

When  it  was  just  now  intimated  that  the  higher  curric- 
ulum— the  regular  college  course — still  awaits  a  genu- 
inely purposeful  organization,  there  was  no  intention  to 
imply  that  theories  of  what  the  course  of  study  should  be 
have  not  been  plentiful.  On  the  contrary,  in  Tarde's 
phrase,  the  whole  subject  is  in  the  viidti-conscioiis  or 
possibly  the  pluri-conscious  stage.  It  remains  to  advance 
it  to  a  imi-conscious  state.' 

The  many  different  conceptions  of  what  the  college 
curriculum  should  be  vary  with  the  emphasis  which  is 
laid  upon  the  five  phases  of  the  educational  function. 
Thus  those  who  are  impressed  with  the  social  and  in- 
dividual importance  of  accurate  observation  and  trust- 
worthy reasoning,  of  precise  communication,  of  prompt 
and  energetic  action  in  adjustment  to  the  demands  of  life, 
insist  upon  regarding  ^  college  studies  as  disciplines  by 
means  of  which  these  habits  and  dexterities,  mental  and 
physical,  may  be  formed,  or,  in  popular  terms,  by  which 
these  powers  may  be  developed  and  strengthened.  This 
ideal  is  pushed  so  far  at  times  that  it  seems  to  imply  the 
possibility  of  developing  power  as  a  sort  of  abstract 
energy  to  be  stored  up  and  available  at  will.  It  might 
almost  be  inferred  that  power  to  do  one  thing  can  be 
easily  drafted  off  for  the  performance  of  a  very  different 
task.  The  limitations  of  this  theory  have  been  pointed 
out  by  Professor  Hinsdale:  ".  .  .  it  is  only  in  a 
limited  sense  that  we  can  be  said  to  have  a  store  of 
mobilized  mental  power.      In  a  sense  men  have  percep- 

1  Supra,  p.  19,  note. 


The  Integration  of  Studies.  119 

tions,  memories,  and  imaginations  rather  than  perception, 
memory,  and  imagination."* 

Again  there  are  those  who  see  vividly  the  importance 
of  transmitting  collective  knowledge.  They  are  led  to 
prize  information,  concrete  facts,  and  general  laws  as 
forming  the  essential  basis  of  education.  Mr.  Lester  F. 
Ward  represents  the  knowledge  theory  in  its  most  robust 
development.  His  principle  is  that  "Everything  that  has 
been  made  known  by  man  should  be  made  known  to  all 
men.  Not  that  every  object,  fact,  and  law  of  nature  can  be 
separately  acquired,  but  that  general  laws  embracing 
them  all  should  be  made  known,  through  the  knowledge 
of  which  these  details  are  generally,  though  not  specially, 
known."'  Since  general  laws  become  decreasingly  trust- 
worthy and  definite  with  the  increasing  complexity  of 
phenomena,  it  follows  that  the  information  theory  makes 
large  demands  upon  the  natural  sciences  for  such  forms  of 
knowledge,  and  upon  the  historical  sciences  for  facts. 
There  is  a  tendency  also  toward  encyclopedic  knowledge. 
It  is  urged  that  the  student  must  collect  all  kinds  of  infor- 
mation, in  all  the  great  departments,  and  thus  round  out 
and  make  symmetrical  his  accumulated  store.  This  way 
of  regarding  the  higher  education  arises  chiefly  from  a 
popular  misconception  of  the  importance  of  learning  as 
contrasted  with  knowledge  which  has  been  ' '  assimilated 
and  transformed  ' '  into  organized  personality. 

Once  more,  to  those  who  are  impressed  by  the  econo- 
mies and  triumphs  of  a  division  of  mental  labor,  it  seems 
of  prime  importance  to  discover  at  the  earliest  moment 
special  individual  aptitudes  and  to  begin  at  once  a  sys- 
tematic, continuous  development  of  these  peculiar  abilities. 

IB.   A.   Hinsdale:   "The  Dogma  of  Formal  Culture,"  Educational  Review, 
September,  1894. 

»  Dynamic  Sociology,  Vol.  II.,  p.  622. 


I20  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

Ideal  social  schemes  very  generally  include  devices  for 
finding  these  various  kinds  of  talent  and  for  putting  them 
at  the  disposal  of  the  commonwealth.  In  another  view, 
the  social  mind  seeks  its  own  perpetuation  by  drafting 
into  service  individuals  peculiarly  fitted  to  be  intrusted 
with  its  many  different  elements.  This  ideal  has  struggled 
for  a  deserved  recognition  in  the  college  curriculum  and  is 
now  firmly  established  under  the  elective  system  which  in 
some  measure  at  least  is  to  be  found  in  all  institutions  of 
higher  education.  Valuable  as  this  theory  is  to  the  indi- 
vidual and  to  society  it  leads  easily  to  an  extreme  which 
seems  to  sacrifice  the  individual  to  society.  In  reality  it 
both  warps  the  former  and  impairs  the  vigor  and  capacity 
of  the  latter.  The  menace  of  ' '  premature  specialization  ' ' 
has  been  proclaimed  so  vigorously — at  times  even  hys- 
terically— that  no  iteration  is  needed  here. 

The  task  of  pursuing  truth  for  its  own  sake,  of  critically 
examining  and  reorganizing  the  collective  tradition,  of 
adding  to  it  new  elements,  appeals  naturally  to  the 
ambition  of  the  scholar.  The  systematizing  of  research 
among  historical  and  literary  materials,  in  the  geological 
field  and  in  the  laboratory,  has  advanced  with  remarkable 
rapidity  and  has  found  a  home  in  the  university.  It  is 
not  strange  that  university  ideals  have  reacted  upon  the 
college  curriculum  and  that  research  methods  are  urged  as 
a  part  of  the  training  which  the  college  should  afford.  It 
is  asserted  that  the  habit  of  dealing  with  phenomena  at 
first  hand,  of  seeking  only  the  exact  truth,  of  relying  on 
personal  observation  rather  than  upon  the  authority  of 
others,  is  not  only  of  great  importance  intellectually  but 
ethically  exerts  a  stimulating  influence  upon  the  life  of 
the  student. 

Yet  the  ' '  laboratory  method  ' '  seems  in  some  danger  of 
becoming  a  fetish  in  itself,  much  as  the  "object  lesson" 


The  IntegratioJi  of  Studies.  1 21 

has  in  many  cases  come  to  be  regarded  as  end  rather  than 
means. 

Finally,  there  is  a  large  class  who  demand  of  the  higher 
education  that  its  chief  concern  be  the  development  of 
men  and  women  who  shall  not  simply  garner  a  wide  store 
of  knowledge  or  acquire  a  special  skill  but  take  up  into 
their  lives,  organize  into  their  characters  the  greatest 
thoughts,  the  highest  ideals,  the  noblest  impulses  of 
humanity.'  Education  is  declared  to  be  more  than  in- 
struction, more  than  discipline,  it  is  the  incorporation  in 
the  individual  of  the  loftiest  aspirations  of  mankind,*  and 
"in  striving  to  advance  the  race  toward  the  ideal,  he  is 
himself  realizing  that  ideal  in  his  own  person."'  Liberal 
studies  are  eulogized  because  they  set  the  mind  free  from 
all  narrowness  and  prejudice.*  "Leave  in  traditional 
preeminence,"  said  Lowell,  "those  arts  that  were  rightly 
called  liberal ;  those  studies  that  kindle  the  imagination, 
and  through  it  irradiate  the  reason  ;  those  studies  that 
manumitted  the  modern  mind."*  Education  thus  con- 
ceived approaches  the  classical  Greek  formula  of  the  true, 
the  beautiful,  and  the  good — a  formula  into  which  the 
race  has  been  reading  a  deeper,  fuller  meaning. 

In  these  five  ways,  then,  from  the  social  standpoint  may 

1  This  does  not  involve  a  faculty  psychology  which  discriminates  arbitrarily  be- 
tween intellectual  and  emotional  phenomena.  The  mind  as  a  whole  grows  by  es- 
tablishing connections  between  old  experiences  and  new.  These  connections  may 
be  predominantly  intellectual,  t".  <?.,  a  fact  may  be  related  to  other  facts  in  time  and 
space,  or  it  may  also  be  connected  with  emotional  experiences  of  the  self.  Edu- 
cation should  consciously  seek  to  establish  a  symmetrical  system  of  associations 
by  which  knowledge  may  be  completely  not  partially  incorporated  in  personality. 

e  "  Man  is  activity  of  relating  the  ideal  and  the  real;  education  in  general  is 
the  development  of  man's  powers  to  frame  a  noble  ideal  of  life  and  to  realize  this 
ideal."— Anna  Boynton  Thompson  :  Educational  Revinv,  April,  1895,  p.  359. 

8 Joseph  LeConte:  "The  Effect  of  the  Theory  of  Evolution  on  Education," 
Educational  Revinv,  September,  1895. 

4  G.  T.  Ladd  :  "  Essentials  of  a  Modern  Liberal  Education,"  Educational  Re- 
view, October,  1895. 

6  Harvard  Anniversary  Address. 


122  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

education  be  rej^arded.  Obviously  methods  will  vary 
with  the  particular  clement  which  is  emphasized.  Yet  a 
moment's  consideration  will  show  that  these  are  but 
different  aspects  of  the  same  thinj^,  different  functions  of 
the  same  process.  The  unity  of  consciousness  may  be 
analyzed  for  convenience  but  the  reality  remains  indi- 
visible. True,  one  function  may  be  exercised  at  the 
expense  of  others  but  not  in  isolation  or  independence. 
Mental  discipline  is  gained  only  through  the  process  of 
acquiring  knowledge.  Peculiar  aptitudes  cannot  be  culti- 
vated without  the  exercise  of  intellectual  power.  Knowl- 
edge and  skill  once  communicated  or  developed  will  be 
modified  or  enriched  by  individuality,  be  it  in  never  so 
slight  a  way.  The  emotional  and  ethical  life  will  depend 
upon  the  materials  and  organization  of  knowledge  and  in 
turn  will  react  upon  all  the  other  functions.  The  problem 
of  education  therefore  lies  in  an  attempt  to  keep  these 
various  factors  in  relations  of  mutual  cooperation  and 
reinforcement. 

Again  these  five  elements  are  not  to  be  thought  of  as 
coordinate  but  rather  as  assuming  various  positions  of 
subordination  to  the  last,  which  is  regarded  as  the  final 
end  or  purpose  of  education.  Discipline,  knowledge, 
specialization,  contribution  all  become  subordinate  aims, 
each  important  in  itself,  but  getting  its  full  meaning  only 
in  relation  to  the  others  and  to  the  ultimate  end,  i.  <?., 
moral  and  social  self-consciousness. 

Once  more,  knowledge  has  a  fundamental  place  among 
these  various  activities.  Discipline,  as  we  have  seen, 
requires  knowledge  as  a  means  to  its  development, 
specialization  and  contribution  are  also  conditioned  by 
knowledge,  while  sentiments  and  ideals  are  inseparably 
associated  with  it.  It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  upon  the 
kind  of  knowledge  which  finds  a  place  in  the  curriculum 


The  Integration  of  Studies.  123 

will  depend  the  successful  achievement  of  both  the  subor- 
dinate aims  and  of  the  ultimate  end. 

In  knowledge  two  things  are  implied — materials  and 
organization.  While  in  close  analysis  even  the  simplest 
notion  or  concept  is  an  organization  of  sensations  it  is 
legitimate  enough  to  speak  of  these  primary  products  as 
materials  which  are  constructed  by  classification  and 
generalization  into  larger  systems. 

First  of  all,  it  is  obvious  that  in  the  higher  curriculum 
there  must  be  a  conscious  isolation  of  studies,  of  the  parts 
which  have  been  analyzed  out  of  accumulated  experiences 
by  the  reflective  thinking  of  the  race.  There  is  some 
danger  that  in  higher  education,  as  in  elementary  and 
secondary,  the  plea  for  unity  may  be  misinterpreted  into  a 
demand  for  a  vague,  ill-defined  mingling  of  all  kinds  of 
knowledge.  Manifestly  such  a  tendency  would  be  retro- 
gression rather  than  progress,  disorganization  instead  of 
genuine  unity.  The  integration  of  studies  demands  that 
these  pursuits  be  definitely  set  off  and  unified  within  them- 
selves in  order  that  they  may  be  further  articulated  into  a 
larger  whole.  The  Committee  of  Fifteen  has  admirably 
expressed  this  essential  principle  : 

"There  should  be  rigid  isolation  of  the  elements  of  each 
branch  for  the  purpose  of  getting  a  clear  conception  of  what  is 
individual  and  peculiar  in  a  special  province  of  learning.  Other- 
wise one  will  not  gain  from  each  its  special  contribution  to  the 
whole."' 

An  examination  of  studies  discloses  wide  differences  in 
the  degrees  to  which  they  may  be  successfully  isolated. 
Comte's  division  into  abstract  and  concrete  and  Spencer's 
classification  into  abstract,  abstract-concrete,  and  concrete 
are  expressions  of  these  variations.  Here,  too,  the 
hierarchical  order,   which  is  of  little  value  in   the  lower, 

1  Report  of  the  sub-committee  on  "  The  Correlation  of  Studies,"  Ed.  annotated 
byG.  P.  Brown,  p.  5S. 


124  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

unconscious  stages  of  education,  begins  to  have  a  mean- 
ing. Experience  is  now  being  reorganized  on  a  reflective 
basis  and  studies  must  assume  certain  relations  in  a  logical 
scheme.  Hence  mathematics  and  language,  as  instru- 
ments or  tools  of  thought,  and  physics  and  chemistry  as 
dealing  with  the  general  principles  of  force  and  matter, 
are  capable  of  pretty  definite  isolation.  They  furnish  sub- 
ject matter  for  discipline  of  the  mind,  they  make  at  least  a 
preliminary  test  for  special  abilities,  and  they  modify 
somewhat  the  student's  general  conception  of  the  world. 

Yet  large  fields  of  experience  remain  virtually  un- 
explored in  a  systematic  way.  We  have  seen  that  the 
collective  tradition  has  gradually  been  analyzed  into  phe- 
nomena of  matter,  life,  mind,  and  society.  In  the  old 
classification  of  studies  the  first  two  would  be  included  in 
the  natural  sciences,  the  second  two  in  the  humanities. 
Since  these  elements  have  been  analyzed  out  of  human 
life  it  follows  that  they  all  are  necessary  to  a  complete 
view  of  reality.  There  is  a  substantial  consensus  of 
opinion  that  the  higher  education  should  have  all  the 
great  departments  represented  in  some  measure  in  every 
curriculum. 

Dr.  Thomas  Hill  proposed  before  1850  a  hierarchy  of 
the  sciences  as  follows  :  (a)  studies  dealing  with  space 
and  time — mathematics  ;  i^b')  sciences  of  matter — physics, 
chemistry,  biology,  etc. ;  (r)  historical  studies  —  law, 
language,  arts,  trades  ;  (^)  psychological  studies — ethics, 
aesthetics,  mental  philosophy  ;  (<?)  religious  studies — 
theology  and  natural  religion.'  At  each  stage  in  the 
curriculum,  he  declared,  these  five  elements  should  always 
be  represented.  *  Dr.  Harris  has  long  advocated  what  he 
describes  as  ' '  keeping  the  five  windows  of  the  soul  open 

1  77/1?  True  Order  of  Studies,  p.  22. 
ayjia.,  pp.  159-163. 


The  Integration  of  Studies.  1 25 


to  the  world."  This  theory  was  outhned  in  1872  and  has 
been  restated  in  many  articles.  It  is  to  be  traced  very 
clearly  in  the  Report  of  the  Committee  of  Fifteen.  The 
division  adopted  is  primarily  into  nature,  and  man  or  spirit. 
Nature  is  subdivided  into  :  i.  Inorganic — mathematics, 
physics,  and  chemistry  ;  2.  Organic — physical  geography, 
astronomy,  botany,  etc.,  and  man  into:  3.  Theoretical  or 
thinking  power — logic,  philosophy,  philology  ;  4.  Practi- 
cal or  will  power — civil  history,  social  and  political  sci- 
ences ;  5.  Esthetic  or  art  power — literature  and  art.' 
At  all  times,  from  the  elementary  school  through  the 
college,  these  five  windows  must  be  open. 

Prof.  George  T.  Ladd  reduces  the  number  of  essential 
groups  to  three  :  i.  Language  and  literature  ;  2.  Mathe- 
matics and  natural  sciences  ;  3.  The  soul  of  man,  in- 
cluding the  products  of  his  reflective  thinking.'^  This 
division  is  a  little  disappointing  in  its  vagueness  and  yet  it 
clearly  includes  the  inorganic  and  organic  spheres,  the 
phenomena  of  mind,  and  in  some  measure  the  products  of 
social  life,  i.  e.,  language,  literature,  philosophy.  Even 
more  general  are  the  essentials  announced  by  Butcher  : 
' '  Literature,  Art,  and  Science — these  are  the  three  chief 
disciplines  by  which  man  seeks  to  attain  truth  or  strives 
after  beauty  ;  and  these  departments  are  so  inherently 
connected  together  as  to  form  an  ideal  unity."  It  re- 
quires some  ingenuity  to  read  into  literature,  art,  and 
science  all  the  studies  of  the  curriculum,  yet  the  ideal  of 
certain  great  departments  as  presenting  necessary  aspects 
of  truth  as  a  whole  is  clearly  maintained. 

It  seems  necessary  to  discriminate  mathematics  and 
language   regarded   as    prerequisites  of   all    mental    prog- 

1  Nineteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  St.  Louis  Public 
Schools,  1872-73,  p.  75. 

a  "The  Essentials  of  a  Modern  Liberal  Education,"  Educational  Rn'iew,  Octo- 
ber, 1895. 


126  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

ress  from  studies  which  deal  with  concrete  phenomena. 
Physics  and  chemistry,  as  we  have  seen,  fall  between. 
The  latter,  however,  are  to  be  grouped  with  the  inorganic 
sciences  rather  than  separately  classified.  We  thus  have 
five  great  divisions  :  I.  The  F'ormal  Studies — mathematics 
and  language  (grammar  and  logic) ;  II.  Inorganic  sciences  ; 
III.  Organic  sciences  ;  IV.  Sciences  of  mind — psychology, 
ethics,  literary  art,  philosophy  ;  V.  Social  sciences — liter- 
ature, '  history,  economics,  political  science,  sociology. 

But  this  primary  grouping  according  to  the  objective 
nature  of  the  phenomena  has  certain  pedagogical  dis- 
advantages. It  carries  subdivision  too  far  in  the  earlier 
groups  and  leaves  the  last  too  large.  There  is  need  for 
unification  into  subordinate  divisions  on  the  one  hand  and 
into  minor  sections  on  the  other.  Just  as  each  science 
has  its  own  philosophy,  so  groups  of  sciences  have  their 
unifying  conceptions.  Thus  divisions  II.  and  III.  above 
may  be  combined  into  a  philosophy  of  nature,  division  IV. 
becomes  the  philosophy  of  mind,  and  division  V.  the 
philosophy  of  society  including  ( i )  social  products,  litera- 
ture, language  (philology),  law  ;  (2)  the  social  process, 
economic,  political,  and  social  forces  working  in  historical 
development. 

1  The  disposition  of  literature  in  this  scheme  presents  a  problem.  Wundt  in 
his  Methodcn  Lehre  (Div.  IV.,  Chapter  I.)  asserts  that  while  philolog>-  is  plainly  a 
social  science,  literature  is,  like  painting  and  sculpture,  a  much  more  individual 
creation  and  is  therefore  more  closely  related  to  psychology-  than  to  sociology. 
Literature  may,  however,  be  regarded  from  two  points  of  view,  j.  <?.,  it  may  be 
studied  as  to  form  or  as  to  content.  Thus  Tennyson's  poems  or  Shakespeare's 
plays  may  be  looked  at  as  creations  of  peculiar  personalities ;  or  a  Churton 
Collins  and  countless  commentators  may  seek  in  the  past  the  materials  which 
have  been  gathered  from  many  sources  and  recombined  in  new  forms  or  they 
may  study  the  contemporary  forces  which  have  influenced  the  authors.  In  the 
first  case  the  study  is  chiefly  psychological,  in  the  other  predominantly  social.  It 
seems  best  therefore  to  place  literature  as  form  or  art  under  the  sciences  of 
mind,  and  literature  as  content  or  as  an  historical  growth  under  sciences  of 
society.  It  is,  of  course,  obvious  that  this,  like  almost  all  classifications,  abstracts 
and  separates  parts  of  a  unity. 


The  Integration  of  Studies.  127 

It  will  be  noticed  at  the  first  glance  that  these  divisions 
arrange  themselves  in  a  certain  logical  order  which,  how- 
ever, is  not  to  be  confused  with  the  chronological  order 
of  instruction.  The  study  of  literature,  for  example,  is 
not  to  be  postponed  until  knowledge  of  nature  and  mind 
has  been  systematized.  Nor  is  the  study  of  history  to 
await  a  mastery  of  all  which  precedes  in  the  schedule. 
On  the  contrary,  all  these  divisions  should  be  represented, 
some  of  them  simultaneously  in  the  curriculum,  and  only 
gradually  and  naturally  should  the  philosophic  scheme 
into  which  the  various  pursuits  fall  be  presented  to  the 
growing  self-consciousness  of  the  student.  The  final  aim 
of  higher  instruction  should  be  to  aid  the  student  to  unify 
his  knowledge.  The  integration  of  studies  implies  the 
definite  formation  and  isolation  of  pursuits  and  the  com- 
bination of  them,  first  into  subordinate  systems  which  are 
afterward  further  combined  into  larger  wholes,  and  these 
again  into  a  higher  final  unity. 

The  student,  therefore,  should  be  required  to  pursue 
courses  in  each  one  of  these  great  divisions  for  a  suf- 
ficient time  to  enable  him  to  understand  the  materials, 
methods,  and  aims,  both  of  a  particular  study  and  of  the 
group  to  which  it  is  immediately  related.  That  is,  whether 
a  student  devote  his  time  to  physics,  or  to  geology,  or  to 
botany,  his  attention  should  be  consciously  and  system- 
atically called  to  the  philosophy  of  nature  as  a  whole  of 
intimately  related  parts.  Or  if  he  turn  to  psychology,  he 
must  not  only  enter  into  the  spirit  and  methods  of 
analyzing  consciousness  but  he  must  be  shown  how  on  the 
one  hand  consciousness  is  related  to  nature  through 
body  and  brain,  and  how  on  the  other  its  activities  are  the 
sources  of  language,  reasoning,  ideals,  literature,  social 
institutions,  etc.  In  a  like  manner  the  student  of  litera- 
ture must  see  in  the  works  of  great  authors  not  only  the 


128  The  Social  Mind  ayid  Education. 

creations  of  individual  genius  but  the  products  of  nature 
and  mind  in  society  working  in  interaction  and  giving 
expression  to  the  thoughts  and  aspirations  of  the  race. 
Language  itself  should  be  displayed  as  a  social  growth 
to  be  accounted  for  by  physiological  and  psychical  and 
social  causes.  History  is  no  longer  in  our  colleges  a  col- 
lection of  dates  and  names  and  events,  but  is  unified  by  the 
idea  of  uninterrupted  sequence  of  cause  and  effect — in  a 
development  which  includes  concrete  physical,  mental, 
and  social  factors.  Once  more,  social  philosophy  seeks 
to  display  the  collective  life  as  a  process  in  which  all 
elements  of  human  knowledge  find  their  coordination — 
in  which  the  individual  gets  his  meaning  from  the  whole, 
receiving  the  heritage  of  the  past  and  finding  his  highest 
happiness  in  transmitting  it  purified,  enriched,  and  ele- 
vated to  posterity.  Finally  this  synthesis  of  studies  should 
be  related  to  the  great  cosmic  ideal  of  a  universe  in  which 
our  natural  and  social  system  is  only  a  subordinate  part. 

It  remains  to  show  how  this  ideal  may  be  realized,  in 
some  measure  at  least,  in  the  organization  of  the  college 
curriculum.  At  the  outset  it  will  be  well  to  indicate 
certain  guiding  principles,  some  of  which  have  been  im- 
plied in  what  has  gone  before. 

1.  The  college  course  must  be  regarded  as  primarily 
designed  to  afford  the  student  means  for  gaining  a 
coherent  view  and  high  ideals  of  life.  However  important 
individuality  and  independence  may  be  to  university 
departments,  in  the  college  the  students'  best  interests 
should  be  the  supreme  end  and  each  department  should 
cooperate  with  the  rest  in  an  intelligent,  unified  plan. 

2.  Continuous  work  in  some  one  subject  or  small 
group  of  subjects  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  first 
proposition  and  permits  that  development  of  special  apti- 
tudes which  has  been  shown  to  be  one  of  the  demands 


The  Integration  of  Studies.  129 

both  of  social  progress  and  of  individual  self-realization. 

3.  Requirement  in  studies  should  be  reduced  to  the 
minimum  so  far  as  co7itimiance  of  a  study  is  concerned,  but 
should  be  employed  chiefly  to  secure  representation  of  the 
great  departments  and  to  insure  attendance  upon  unifying 
courses  on  the  philosophy  of  the  natural  sciences,  social 
philosophy,  literature,  social  ethics,  and  general  philoso- 
phy. That  is,  the  largest  latitude  in  the  choice  of  par- 
ticular studies  should  be  combined  with  a  rigid  insistence 
upon  a  conscious  and  systematic  effort  to  display  those 
studies  in  their  wider  relations. ' 

Much  has  been  said  in  this  chapter  about  synthesis, 
unification  of  knowledge,  and  the  like.  It  remains  to 
give  a  more  definite  meaning  to  these  formal  phrases. 
One  might  almost  fancy  that  by  some  psychical  loom  the 
various  threads  of  the  special  sciences  and  arts  were  to  be 
woven  into  one  great  fabric,  or,  to  change  the  figure,  that 
these  studies  by  a  tour  de  force  were  to  be  held  simulta- 
neously before  the  mind's  eye  as  if  graphically  displayed 
upon  some  mental  chart.  Mechanical  analogy  fails  us  and 
even  biological  conceptions  are  far  from  adequate. 

The  idea  of  growth,  as  we  have  seen,  involves  stages  of 
development.  What  are  the  stages  of  mental  growth 
which  fall  within  the  college  period  and  what  methods  are 
appropriate  to  them?  It  is  true  that  the  whole  period  is 
one  of  self-consciousness  on  the  student's  part,  yet  there 
are  various  degrees  of  self-consciousness  which   must  be 

1  This  thought  has  been  admirably  expressed  by  George  S.  Morris  :  "  .  .  . 
in  whatever  department  the  special  subject  of  his  studies  may  lie,  whether  his- 
tory, language,  literature,  or  the  physical  and  natural  sciences,  he  [the  student] 
should  be  expected  to  accompany  his  study  of  and  research  for  particular  truths 
and  orders  of  truths,  .  .  with  the  study  of  and  the  search  for  the  truth,  the 
universal  truth  to  which  all  special  orders  of  truths  or  'sciences'  and  orders  of 
'science  '  are  organically  related  ;  in  which  as  in  an  universal  organism  they  are 
all  concretely  one,  '  members  one  of  another,'  ai\d  in  the  light  of  which  alone 
each  becomes  complete." — Methods  of  Teaching  and  Studying  History  (a  collec- 
tion of  essays  by  various  authors),  p.  152. 


130  The  Social  Mind  and  Edtuation. 

regarded.  It  is  all  very  well  to  assure  the  college  fresh- 
man that  all  knowledge  is  a  great  unified  organism,  but 
does  that  mean  anything  to  him  ?  We  may  assure  him 
that  the  world  is  an  orderly  whole,  but  as  it  is  presented 
to  his  senses,  is  it  such  ?     James  states  the  case  clearly  : 

"The  real  world  as  it  is  given  at  this  moment  is  the  sum  total 
of  all  beings  and  events  now.  But  can  we  think  of  such  a  sum  ? 
Can  we  realize  for  an  instant  what  a  cross-section  of  all  existence 
at  a  definite  point  of  time  would  be  ?  While  I  talk  and  the  flies 
buzz,  a  sea  gull  catches  a  fish  at  the  mouth  of  the  Amazon,  a  tree 
falls  in  the  Adirondack  wilderness,  a  man  sneezes  in  Germany,  a 
horse  dies  in  Tartary,  and  twins  are  born  in  France.  What  does 
that  mean  ?  Does  the  contemporaneity  of  these  events  with 
each  other  and  with  a  million  more  as  disjointed  as  they  form  a 
rational  bond  between  them,  and  unite  them  into  anything  that 
means  for  us  a  world?  Yet  just  such  a  collateral  contemporaneity, 
and  nothing  else,  is  the  real  order  of  the  world.  It  is  an  order 
with  which  we  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  get  away  from  it  as  fast 
as  possible.  As  I  said,  we  break  it  ;  we  break  it  into  histories, 
we  break  it  into  arts,  and  we  break  it  into  sciences,  and  then  we 
begin  to  feel  at  home."* 

This  process  of  breaking  up  the  world  has  been  in 
considerable  measure  accomplished  by  the  college  fresh- 
man and  he  is  familiar  with  the  idea  of  unification  in  the 
subsuming  of  many  particulars  under  a  general  principle. 
So,  too,  he  is  able  to  follow  the  process  by  which  subordi- 
nate principles  are  unified  by  a  still  more  general  law. 
The  idea  of  the  unity  of  nature  is  thus  easily  within  his 
mental  grasp  early  in  his  academic  career.  The  exact 
sciences  and  those  in  which  relatively  precise  general  laws 
are  discoverable  lend  themselves  readily  to  organization. 

As  phenomena  increase  in  complexity,  however,  general 
explanation  becomes  more  difficult,  the  tax  upon  con- 
scious attention  is  greatly  increased,  and  the  interest  of  the 
student   cannot  so   surely  be  counted   upon.      Particular 

1  Psychology,  Vol.  II.,  p.  635  (foot-note>. 


The  Integratio7i  of  Studies.  131 

concrete  events  or  problems  attract  notice  and  demand 
explanation.  The  idea  of  unity  is  gained  from  the  dis- 
covery that  on  every  phenomenon  of  daily  life  the  var- 
ious studies  may  be  focussed  to  give  luminous  interpre- 
tation. 

This  synthetic  habit  of  looking  at  problems  is  the 
very  key  to  wisdom.  Life  may  be  described  as  the 
solution  of  a  continuous  series  of  problems.  Success 
varies  with  the  degree  of  ability  with  which  these  demands 
for  interpretation  and  action  are  met.  No  skill  of  analysis 
alone  will  avail ;  there  must  be  recombination  into  a  con- 
crete judgment.  On  the  other  hand,  the  decision  which 
neglects  important  elements  of  analysis  will  fall  short  of 
real  insight.  Analysis  and  synthesis  are  organic  parts  of 
one  process  ;  each  alone  is  an  abstraction.  Yet  one  may 
be  developed  at  the  expense  of  the  other.  In  each 
science  or  study  both  are  insisted  upon,  but  in  higher 
education,  in  the  relations  of  studies  to  each  other  and 
to  life  conscious,  systematic  heed  has  been  given  to 
analysis  while  synthesis  has  been  left  for  the  most  part  to 
"  natural  maturity  of  judgment,"  "  the  gradual  accumula- 
tion of  experience,"  and  more  to  the  same  purpose. 
There  is  here  implied  a  confusion  between  a  method  of 
thought  and  the  products  of  thinking.  It  is  certainly  true 
that  other  things  being  equal  the  concrete  judgment  of  a 
youth  will  not  be  as  wise  as  that  of  a  mature  man,  but  it 
may  be  that  the  former's  method  of  reasoning  is  actually 
better.  He  lacks  data,  however,  and  his  conclusion  is 
faulty.  The  higher  education  is  concerned  not  so  much 
with  getting  formulated  wisdom  into  consciousness  as  in 
developing  the  reasoning  methods  and  mental  attitude 
which  will  gradually  achieve  wisdom  in  response  to  the 
actual  needs  of  life.  Sage  precepts  may  be  mere  unre- 
lated  information  which  has  no  real  meaning  for  the  self. 


132  The  Social  Mind  aiid  Education. 

Maxims,  like  facts,  may  fill  the  mind  with  useless  lumber. 

The  superior  flexibility  of  an  analytical  alphabet  as  con- 
trasted with  a  system  of  synthetic  characters — represented 
in  material  form  by  movable  types  and  the  early  wooden 
printing  blocks  respectively — is  typical  of  all  intellectual 
progress.  Empirical  and  practical  education  sought  to 
enforce  by  precept  and  discipline  a  fixed  physical,  intel- 
lectual, and  moral  character,  to  fit  human  beings  to  meet 
certain  situations,  to  solve  certain  definite  problems  of 
industrial  and  social  life.  The  experiences  of  the  race  in 
various  concrete  combinations  were  stereotyped  as  it  were 
in  human  beings.  Sciences  were  bodies  of  transmitted 
dogma,  arts  were  customary  ways  of  doing  particular 
things,  ethics  was  a  mass  of  concrete  maxims  and  rules. 

Now  all  is  being  changed.  Elements  of  analysis  are 
prized  because  they  involve  possibilities  of  countless  com- 
binations for  special  unforeseen  needs.  With  the  increase 
of  social  complexity  the  tools  of  human  thought  must 
become  more  and  more  refined  and  adjustable.  As  social 
arrangements  lose  their  rigidity  and  are  rapidly  modified,  . 
the  individual,  to  resume  the  figure,  must  be  a  case  of  type 
rather  than  a  stereotyped  plate  if  he  is  to  adapt  himself  to 
the  changing  demands  of  his  environment.  Each  study 
isolated  and  mastered  is  an  element  of  potential  strength, 
but  it  becomes  actually  a  power  only  in  contributing  to 
some  concrete  synthetic  judgment  which  otherwise  would 
lack  completeness.  The  accumulation  of  many  studies 
or  much  learning  by  a  mind  which  is  deficient  in  the  habit 
of  seeing  things  together  is  like  a  font  of  type  in  the  hands 
of  a  bungling  compositor. 

The  preliminary  notions  of  unity  in  the  more  highly 
special  facts  of  life  therefore  are  to  be  gained  from  the 
interpretation  of  particular  concrete  phenomena  which 
are  seen  to  be  parts  of  a  vast  plexus  of  events  in  orderly 


The  Integration  of  Studies .  133 

relations  of  coexistence  or  sequence.  Historical  studies 
in  combination  with  the  natural  sciences  afford  these  con- 
ceptions of  continuity  and  interdependence  carried  up 
into  the  complex  facts  of  human  life.  Contemporary- 
social  problems  challenge  attention,  emphasize  the  intri- 
cacy of  society,  and  create  a  demand  for  some  coherent 
view  of  human  association. 

Again,  with  a  more  exact  knowledge  of  the  laws  of 
mind  the  student  is  prepared  to  reexamine  the  concrete 
materials  of  history.  Social  facts  are  seen  to  group  them- 
selves into  certain  grand  divisions  and  yet  to  be  parts  of  a 
great  unifying  conception,  that  of  a  developing  social 
life.  In  the  light  of  this  hypothesis  much  unrelated  infor- 
mation accumulated  during  childhood  and  youth  begins 
to  assume  organization.  A  preliminary  order  succeeds  the 
chaos  of  mere  haphazard  experience.  A  way  of  looking 
at  life,  crude  doubtless,  yet  coherent,  thus  begins  con- 
sciously to  take  form  in  the  student's  mind.  Valuable  as 
this  synthesis  will  prove  to  his  mental  development,  it  will 
be  merely  a  stage  of  transition.  Drawing  its  conceptions 
largely  from  the  physical  and  biological  sciences,  it  may 
give  a  false  sense  of  definiteness  and  finality.  The  young 
mind  is  often  attracted  by  such  theories  as  those  of  Buckle 
with  their  explanations  in  terms  of  food  supply  and  climate 
and  aspect  of  nature.  These  hypotheses  gratify  the  demand 
for  unity  and  many  times  are  welcomed.  Or  there  may 
be  a  vague,  instinctive  resistance  to  these  doctrines — a 
demand  for  a  larger  science  and  a  rational  sanction  for  an 
emotional  repugnance. 

Necessary  perhaps  as  a  stage  of  growth,  a  predominantly 
naturalistic  way  of  looking  at  the  world  must  be  con- 
sciously broken  up  to  admit  more  complex  facts — facts  of 
mind,  "  idea  forces."  The  ideal  element  in  social  life  finds 
its  expression  largely  in  literature  which  at  the  same  time 


134  ^'^'^  Social  Mind  arid  Education. 

reflects  nature  and  man  in  mutual  reaction.  The  presenta- 
tion of  great  literary  masterpieces  as  displaying  the  forces 
of  mind  at  work  in  society  has  the  double  advantage  of 
affording  concrete  material  of  inherent  interest,  and  of  set- 
ting up  those  emotional  associations  which  are  essential  to 
the  development  of  personality. 

The  provisional  survey  of  society  or  social  philosophy, 
thus  broadened  and  enriched  both  by  literary  studies  and 
collateral  pursuits  of  one  or  more  of  the  special  social 
sciences,  may  next  be  more  thoroughly  organized  ;  gen- 
eral principles  may  be  developed  out  of  the  concrete  facts 
of  experience,  historical  reading,  and  the  laws  of  eco- 
nomic and  political  theory.  At  last  phenomena  may  be 
arranged  in  their  logical  order.  The  sciences  fall  into  their 
rational  sequence  ;  studies  are  seen  to  be  related  in  a  great 
unified  system  of  mental  conceptions  which,  put  behind  the 
apparently  unconnected  daily  experiences,  sets  them  in 
order  and  gives  a  deeper,  clearer  meaning  to  both  indi- 
vidual and  collective  life.  Thus  an  original  chaos  of  per- 
ceptions becomes  finally,  through  many  stages  of  growth, 
a  cosmos  of  ideas. 

But  it  is  not  enough  that  the  predominantly  intellectual 
aspect  of  consciousness  only  be  set  in  order  ;  there  must 
also  be  a  systematic  attempt  to  aid  in  the  unification  of  the 
emotional  and  volitional  life.  Conduct  as  well  as  thought 
must  be  organized.  The  old  curriculum,  which  suddenly 
in  senior  year  introduced  a  moral  philosophy  that  had  little 
or  no  relation  to  the  other  studies  of  the  course,  is  passing 
away.  There  is  need  of  a  social  ethics  which  shall  grow 
naturally  out  of  the  pursuits  which  precede  it,  which  shall 
base  principles  of  conduct  on  the  essential  nature  of  man 
living  in  association  with  his  fellows,  which  out  of  unified 
knowledge  shall  guide  the  unification  of  personality  for  the 
achievement  of  ideal  ends. 


The  hitegration  of  Studies.  135 

All  this  leads  to  a  systematic  synthesis  of  studies  and 
experience  into  a  philosophy,  a  conscious  view  of  the 
world,  an  ideal  scheme  within  which  events  take  their 
places  in  orderly  relations.  Such  a  philosophy  must  in  the 
nature  of  things  be  provisional.  It  must  grow  with  growth 
in  knowledge  and  experience,  but  it  is  nevertheless  a  pur- 
poseful putting  of  things  together — a  habit  which  once 
formed  becomes  a  vital  necessity  of  the  mind. 

It  is  not,  then,  Utopian  to  believe  that  the  time  will  come 
when  many  of  the  ablest  minds  will  be  specially  trained  and 
devoted  to  the  service  of  helping  college  students  to  organ- 
ize and  integrate  their  studies  into  a  philosophy  of  social 
life  and  a  way  of  looking  at  the  universe.  For  this  is  a 
task  which  cannot  longer  be  neglected.  If  the  experience 
of  the  race  counts  ior  anything,  the  view  of  the  whole  is 
quite  as  important  as  the  knowledge  of  details.  This  view 
of  the  whole  should  not  be  left  to  happy  accident.  A 
purposeful  "short-cut"  must  be  directed  by  the  higher 
education.  "Knowledge  comes,  but  wisdom  lingers." 
Much  has  been  done  to  hasten  the  advent  of  knowledge. 
It  remains  to  accelerate  in  some  measure  at  least  the  tardy 
pace  of  that  unified  knowledge  which  is  wisdom. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

A    TENTATIVE    CURRICULUM. 

Arnold  Toynbee  once  asserted  that  changes  can  be 
accomplished  only  by  two  things  :  first,  an  ideal  which 
arouses  interest  and  kindles  the  imagination,  and  second, 
a  definite,  intelligent  plan  for  carrying  that  ideal  out 
into  practice.'  If  the  ideal  which  has  been  outlined  in  the 
foregoing  chapters  is  to  have  any  value  it  must  be  shown  to 
be  capable  of  introduction,  in  provisional  form  at  least, 
into  present  educational  arrangements. 

The  following  scheme  is  presented  as  a  basis  for  discus- 
sion and  as  a  suggestion  for  definite  machinery  of  instruc- 
tion. Inevitably  the  writer  exposes  himself  to  the  charge 
of  being  a  doctrinaire.  He  would  emphatically  disavow- 
any  thought  of  dogmatism  concerning  so  complex  a 
problem,  and  above  all  would  have  it  distinctly  under- 
stood that  no  mechanism  can  be  a  substitute  for  motive 
power,  no  arrangement  of  courses,  however  philosophi- 
cally sound  or  pedagogically  wise,  can  in  itself  insure  that 
spirit  of  instruction  which  alone  will  give  the  structure  life. 
This  plan  is  designed  to  show  how  an  earnest  purpose  to 
integrate  the  college  curriculum  might  work  itself  out  by 
means  of  certain  definite  courses.  In  the  absence  of  such 
a  vivifying  purpose  this  scheme  would  be  merely  dry 
bones. 

Again  this  essay  definitely  disclaims  any  attempt  to 
offer  conclusions  on  three  points  :     ( i )  as  to  the  precise 

1  Quoted  by  Professor  Herbert  B.  Adams  in  a  lecture  on  "Arnold  To>Tibee," 
reported  in  The  Chautauqua  Assembly  Herald,  August  4,  1888. 

136 


Freshman  Year. 

1 

1 

Sophomore  )  t 

Great  Divisions. 

, 

I.  Formal, 

M  athematic 

S. 

Langua 

ges.* 

Mathematics. 

Classi 

cal   Lang 

uages.* 

Language. 

English. 

1 
uropean 

Mo 

dern     E 

II.  Science. 

(Referred 

to  in  Mat 
courses.) 

hematical 

Science. 

Inorganic. 

Use  of 

French 

Organic. 

or  Ge 
text-b 

rman 
ooks(?) 

III.  Psychological. 

Psychology. 

Logic. 
Ethics. 
Literature  (?) 

(Involved 
Langu 

to  some 
age   cour 

extent  in 
ses.) 

V 

\ 

N 

' 

Philosophy. 

Synthetic 
Courses. 

IV.  Social. 
I.  Products. 
Literature  (?) 

(Synthesi 
Litera 

( Repres 
Langu^e 

s  in  Lang 

uage  and 
ses.) 

English 
Litera- 
ture. 

Philoso 
Scie 

phy  of 
nee. 

ture  cour 

ented  in 
courses.) 

Philology. 

2.  Process. 

History. 
Economics. 

(Represjented  in 
Language  courses. ) 

i 

Sociology,  etc. 

No  ele  ctive. 

i 

'            Th 

ree    elec" 

SYNOPTIC    CHART   OF    REQUIRED   CC 

Explanation. — Only  required  courses  are  indicated.     Each  horia 

or  five  hours  per  week  for  one  term.     Each  dotted  horizontal  line  repi 

•  Obviously  the  req 

uired  langua 

ges  might  be 

distributed 

n  several  dif 

'erent  ways  ; 

Junior  Year. 


Senior  Year. 


ysjogra- 
hy  and  ■ 

[istory. 


A 


[istory. 


es. 


Social 


Problems 


A 


History. 


Six 


Psychol- 
ogy. 


Survey  of 


Social 
Sciences. 


Literature 


and  Life. 


(Litera- 
ture  rep- 
resented 
above. ) 


Social 


General 
Philoso- 
Social         phy. 


electi  ves. 


Philoso- 
phy. 


Ethics. 


Eig'ht  electiv  es. 


RSES    IN    A    PROPOSED    CLRRICLLL  NL 

tal  line  between  any  two  perpendicular  lines  represents  one  unit  of  four 

fents  a  lecture  course  of  one  hour  per  week  for  one  term. 

|erve  various  special  ends. 


A   Tentative  Curriculum.  137 

details  of  the  requirement  of  different  studies,  (2)  as  to  the 
wisdom  of  having  one  academic  degree  or  more,  (3)  as  to 
a  definite  group  system  by  which  election  of  one  subject 
shall  ipso  facto  determine  in  general  the  use  of  the  other 
electivcs. 

The  positive  aim  will  be  (i)  to  indicate  a  required  cur- 
riculum W'hich  does  accomplish  the  general  representation  of 
subjects  although  others  might  conceivably  render  equally 
good  service  in  this  regard  ;  (2)  to  show  how  a  series  of 
synthetic  courses  might  be  introduced  in  this  or  another 
curriculum  to  guide  systematically  the  development  of  the 
student's  mind  out  of  isolated  studies  into  a  unified  way  of 
looking  at  life  and  conduct.  The  emphasis  is  to  be  laid 
upon  the  second  aim  and  the  first  is  important  only  in  rela- 
tion to  it. 

Certain  existing  conditions  must  at  the  outset  be  accepted 
as  limits  beyond  which  changes  cannot  at  present  be  car- 
ried. Thus  the  period  of  the  higher  education  must 
include  on  the  average  four  scholastic  years  of  approx- 
imately nine  months,  and  each  year  must  be  further  sub- 
divided into  three  terms  of  about  equal  length.  Again, 
the  number  of  exercises  per  week  cannot  ordinarily  exceed 
an  average  of  fifteen.  Once  more,  five  great  divisions  of 
study  at  least  must  be  represented  at  some  period  in  the 
required  courses  of  the  curriculum,  and  at  the  same  time 
a  sufficient  number  of  free  electives  must  be  provided  to 
permit  continuity  of  work  in  any  one  study  or  group  of 
studies. 

An  outline  of  the  proposed  requirements  in  the  curric- 
ulum is  as  follows  : 

Freshman  Year.  (Twelve  required  units  of  four  hours 
per  week  for  one  term,  grouped  into  four  general 
courses.     No  electives. ) 

I.     Formal  Studies.     Mathematics  (3  units).  Classical 


138  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

Languages  (3    units),    Modern    European   Languages  (3 
units),  English  Language  (2  units). 

II.  Scie7ices  of  Naticre.  (Referred  to  incidentally  in 
mathematical  courses. ) 

III.  Psychological.  (Involved  to  some  extent  in  lan- 
guage and  literary  courses. ) 

IV.  (i)  Social  Products.  (Represented  in  language 
courses.)     English  Literature  (i  unit). 

(2)    Social  Process.      (Represented    in    language 
courses. ) 

Synthetic. — History,  literature,  geography,  applied 
science,  art,  are  all  correlated  in  the  language  courses 
which,  conducted  in  the  modern  spirit,  can  meet  all  the 
needs  of  unity  for  the  first  year. 

Sophomore  Year.  (Six  units  of  five  hours  per  week 
for  one  term.  One  weekly  lecture  course.  Three 
elective  units. ) 

I.  Formal.     Modern  European  Languages  (2  units). 

II.  Sciences  of  Nature.  A  laboratory  science  (3 
units). 

IV.  (2)     Social  Process.      History  (i  unit). 

Synthetic,  (i)  Reqidred  lecture  course  (one  hour  per 
week  for  two  terms)  on  the  Philosophy  of  Nature,  dealing 
with  the  inorganic  and  organic  sciences  as  parts  of  a  sys- 
tematic view  of  natural  phenomena.  (2)  Required  lecture 
course  (one  hour  per  week  for  one  term)  on  Physiography 
and  History,  bringing  nature  and  man  into  relation.  (3) 
Possible  use  of  French  and  German  manuals  in  science  and 
other  courses. ' 

Junior  Year.  (Three  units  of  four  hours  per  week  for 
one  term.     Two  lecture  courses.     Six  elective  units. ) 

1  This  has  been  tried  in  several  institutions.  The  plan  is  advocated  because  it 
makes  a  language  an  actual  means  to  an  immediate  and  necessary  end.  The  use- 
fulness of  the  language  is  at  once  apparent. 


A    Tentative  Curriculum.  139 

III.  Psychological.     Psychology  (i  unit). 

IV.  (2)     Social  Process.     History  (i  unit). 

Synthetic,  (i)  Lecture  courses  (one  hour  a  week  for 
first  term).  Social  Problems.  The  presentation  in  detail  of 
several  leading  problems  in  economics,  politics,  and 
sociology.  (2)  A  survey  of  the  Social  Sciences,  afford- 
ing a  preliminary  philosophy  of  society  and  indicating  the 
various  studies  which  deal  with  its  different  aspects.  (3) 
Course  (i  unit).  Literature  and  Life.  A  course  on 
Shakespeare  or  Milton. 

Senior  Year.     (One  unit.     Two  lecture  courses.     Eight 
elective  units.) 

Synthetic,  (i)  Lecture  course  (one  hour  a  week  for 
one  term).  Social  Philosophy — presentation  of  a  general 
theory  as  to  the  origin  and  development  of  society  and  the 
leading  principles  of  association.  (2)  Lecture  course  (one 
hour  a  week  for  one  term).  Social  Ethics — criteria  and 
ideals  of  conduct,  civic  duty,  social  service,  etc.  (3) 
Course  (i  unit).  Philosophy — either  (a)  the  development 
of  modern  philosophy  or  ib)  the  presentation  of  the  system 
of  one  great  philosopher. 

It  is,  perhaps,  necessary  to  indicate  still  further  in  detail 
the  character  of  the  synthetic  courses  proposed  in  this  cur- 
riculum. At  the  outset  it  must  be  insisted  that  the  success 
of  the  whole  scheme  would  be  absolutely  dependent  upon 
a  spirit  of  hearty  cooperation  in  the  teaching  staff.  If 
these  courses  were  regarded  simply  as  so  much  additional 
work  to  be  gone  through  with  perfunctorily,  they  would 
prove  virtually  useless.  The  students  would  quickly  detect 
the  apathy  and  come  to  look  upon  the  lectures  as  largely  a 
formality  not  organically  related  to  the  course  as  a  whole. 
Again,  the  faculty  should  be  socially  self-conscious,  /.  e.y 


140  The  Social  Mind  a?id  Education. 

each  fully  informed  as  to  the  general  purpose  and  adjusting 
his  instruction  to  this  end. 

Moreover,  these  unifying  courses  should  be  prepared 
with  the  utmost  care  and  skill  so  that  their  organizing 
function  might  be  performed  with  the  greatest  economy  of 
attention  and  effort.  Their  aim  should  be  not  only  to 
convey  information  but  to  set  in  order  knowledge  already 
acquired.  These  courses,  too,  should  be  accompanied  by 
syllabi  and  brief  bibliographies.  Regular  examinations 
should  form  a  part  of  the  plan.  Indeed,  every  legitimate 
device  should  be  employed  to  impress  upon  the  students 
the  fundamental  and  essential  nature  of  the  mental  habits 
for  which  these  lectures  and  courses  would  stand. 

During  the  first  year  the  instructors  in  language  would 
be  intrusted  with  the  task  of  preserving  in  a  general  way 
the  unity  of  the  course.  This  they  are  more  and  more 
fully  able  to  do,  as  the  new  spirit  of  classical  instruction 
makes  its  way  into  colleges  and  universities.  Geography, 
history,  social  science,  ethics,  and  philosophy,  as  well 
as  literature,  philology,  and  logic,  are  naturally  related 
in  a  study  of  the  language  and  literary  masterpieces  which 
have  grown  out  of  the  social  life  of  a  classical  people. 
The  outcry  against  the  utter  barrenness  of  a  course  given 
over  largely  in  its  first  years  to  language  and  mathe- 
matics, is  a  protest  against  the  outworn,  dry,  scholastic 
methods  which  happily  are  being  replaced  by  new  theory 
and  practice. 

In  the  second  year  an  attempt  to  put  natural  phenomena 
into  a  rational  system  may  well  be  made.  The  student's 
preparation  in  the  nature  group,  and  his  pursuit  of  some 
one  laboratory  science  in  the  first  terms  of  the  sophomore 
year,  enable  him  to  comprehend  a  course  of  lectures  on  the 
general  classification  of  natural  phenomena,  the  chief  laws 
by  which  each  group  is  unified,  and  the  more  inclusive 


A   Tentative  Curriailum.  141 

hypotheses,  such  as  that  of  the  conservation  of  energy,  the 
equivalence  of  forces,  the  law  of  gravitation,  and  the  like. 
Finally,  a  theory  of  cosmic  development  maybe  presented, 
and  the  mind  may  be  carried  through  the  various  stages  by 
which  the  natural  world  is  conceived  as  gaining  its  present 
form  and  aspect.  Thus,  physics,  chemistry,  astronomy, 
geology,  and  biology  are  all  displayed  as  bodies  of  knowl- 
edge which  organized  into  a  whole  give  a  complete  picture 
of  one  great  division  of  man's  experience.' 

It  is  next  necessary  to  bring  the  nature  group  into  rela- 
tions with  the  social.  At  this  point  a  suggestion  comes 
from  the  lower  schools.  Why  may  not  geography  play  a 
part  quite  as  important  in  the  college  curriculum  as  in  the 
elementary  and  secondary  schools?  Physiography  has 
been  recently  made  a  college  study  and  gives  great  prom- 
ise of  service.  It  correlates  the  natural  sciences  on  the  one 
hand  and  on  the  other  offers  a  point  of  contact  with  the 
social  sciences  represented  especially  in  history.  A  course 
of  lectures,  therefore,  on  physiography  and  history  would 
provide  the  necessary  step  in  building  up  a  conception  of 
society  as  both  dependent  upon  its  natural  basis  and  as 
reacting  upon  it.  Here  various  facts  as  to  the  influence 
of  natural  conditions,  contour,  resources,  water  supply, 
climate,  etc.,  upon  race  and  national  development  could  be 
introduced  and  discussed  with  comparative  thoroughness 
instead  of  being  left  as  now  to  more  or  less  casual  allusion 
in  history  courses.  Enough  material  is  now  available  to 
enrich  such  a  course  with  ample  illustrations,  and  to  pre- 
pare the  student  for  an  intelligent  comprehension  of  a  most 
important  aspect  of  social  growth.  The  Edinburgh  summer 
school,  mentioned  above,  has  done  important  work  in  this 
direction  by  developing  a  method  of  studying  the  region 

1  A   course  of  this  kind  h.-is  been  given  by   President  Jordoii  .it   the   Leiand 
Stanford,  Jr.,  University  witli  marked  success. 


142  The  Social  Mmd  and  Educalio7i. 

about  Edinburgh  from  the  double  standpoint  of  geology 
and  history.' 

It  is  to  be  noted  further  that  the  schedule  requires  stu- 
dents to  pursue  a  course  in  history  at  the  same  time  with 
this  synthetic  course  so  that  there  would  be  frequent  oppor- 
tunity for  cross  reference  and  illustration. 

Logically  the  next  step  would  be  the  presentation  of  a 
unified  way  of  looking  at  society,  but,  as  has  been  pointed 
out,  the  student  is  first  attracted  to  concrete,  definite 
problems  rather  than  to  general  theories.  In  race  devel- 
opment theories  grow  out  of  the  solving  of  problems.  It 
would  be  better,  therefore,  to  present  during  the  first  term 
of  junior  year  certain  typical  social  problems — definite,  con- 
crete situations  which  demand  careful  analysis  and  wise 
solution.  The  habit  of  looking  at  such  problems  from 
many  standpoints  can  best  be  encouraged  by  describing  in 
detail  the  facts  concerning  them,  pointing  out  difficulties 
and  outlining  critically  some  of  the  proposed  solutions.  In 
this  way  the  value  of  detailed  study  on  the  one  hand  and 
the  absolute  need  of  synthetic  judgment  on  the  other  would 
be  vividly  impressed  upon  the  student. " 

The  consideration  of  these  vexed  questions  of  contem- 
porary life  would  be  likely,  it  is  true,  to  produce  the  effect 
of  hopeless  disagreement  upon  the  student's  mind.  Each 
problem  might  seem  more  or  less  isolated  from  every 
other,  and  society  might  appear  fragmentary,  a  thing  of 
many  details.  Yet  if  these  problems  were  wisely  presented 
there  would  grow  out  of  them  a  conviction  that  some  coher- 
ent way  of   conceiving   social   relations  is  a  fundamental 

1  Such  a  course  as  this  should  not  deal  with  vague  theories  but  should  present 
concrete  practical  problems  such  as  those  discussed  by  Professor  N.  S.  Shaler  in 
"  Nature  and  Man  in  America,"  Professor  James  Br>-ce  in  his  chapter  on  "The 
Home  of  the  Nation,"  and  Professor  F.  J.  Turner  in  his  monograph  on  "The 
Frontier  in  American  History." 

s  This  method  has  been  employed  successfully  at  The  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania and  other  institutions. 


A   Tentative  Curricuhcni.  143 

condition  of  rational  solution.  Thus  a  demand  for  a  pro- 
visional social  philosophy  would  develop  naturally  out  of 
the  attempt  to  judge  particular  situations  and  difficulties. 
A  unified  way  of  looking  at  the  relation  of  the  individual 
to  society,  the  activities  of  associated  life,  and  social  insti- 
tutions would  form  the  subject  matter  of  another  lecture 
course  during  the  second  term  of  junior  year.  In  other 
words,  a  preliminary  and  superficial  survey  of  society  as  a 
whole,  and  the  discrimination  of  certain  general  classes  of 
phenomena,  should  precede  the  detailed  study  of  such 
groups.  It  is  most  important  that  the  student  should  gain 
that  conspectus  of  society  which  will  enable  him  to  correlate 
what  knowledge  of  social  phenomena  he  may  already 
possess  ;  and  to  perceive  the  principles  upon  which  they 
are  distributed  among  the  special  social  sciences.  Political 
economy,  political  science,  anthropology,  sociology,  are 
thus  shown  to  be  parts  of  a  vast  cooperative  attempt  to 
explore  and  interpret  the  associated  life  of  men.  Such  a 
general  view  affords  a  certain  synthesis,  but  after  all  it  must 
be  consciously  recognized  as  only  a  provisional  unification. 
Premature  generalizations  and  conceptions  are  to  be 
avoided.  The  "  circle  of  thought" — to  use  the  Herbartian 
phrase — should  be  frequently  completed  for  a  time,  but 
never  finally  closed. 

A  course  of  lessons  and  lectures  on  some  great  literary 
masterpiece — a  Shakespearean  play  for  example — might 
admirably  serve  a  twofold  purpose.  It  would  furnish  a  tan- 
gible and  concrete  subject  matter  to  be  studied  in  the  light 
of  nature,  psychology,  and  society,  and  it  would  provide 
material  for  aesthetic  and  emotional  development,  which  is 
too  likely  to  be  slighted  unless  it  be  consciously  fostered  in 
some  such  way.  The  more  or  less  arid  generalizations  of 
social  science,  if  they  are  to  be  of  real  service,  need  all  the 
while  to  be  brought  back  to  the  special  and  concrete. 


144  '^^^^  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

With  the  preparation  involved  in  what  precedes,  the 
college  senior  would  be  able  to  comprehend  intelligently  a 
course  of  lectures  on  social  evolution  or  social  philosophy 
which  would  attempt  to  trace  the  origin  and  growth  of 
society  and  to  interpret  the  process  in  terms  of  physical, 
vital,  and  psychical  forces.  The  sciences  could  be  dis- 
played in  their  logical  arrangement  crowned  by  a  science 
or  philosophy  of  society  in  which  all  take  their  places  and 
get  their  true  meaning.  Here  consciously  studies  would 
be  integrated,  i.  e.,  not  merely  correlated,  but  unified  into 
an  organism  of  knowledge. 

The  presentation  of  social  philosophy  would  naturally  be 
followed  by  a  course  of  lectures  on  social  ethics  based — so 
far  as  content  goes — upon  the  conception  which,  regarding 
the  individual  and  society  as  each  an  abstraction,  in  reality 
sees  both  in  organic  relations,  the  individual  realizing 
himself  in  serving  society.  A  truer  conception  of  civic 
duty  could  be  developed  from  this  view  of  life  and  the 
highest  ideals  could  be  brought  into  natural  relations  with 
a  unified  knowledge  of  the  nature  and  progress  of  society. 

The  final  step  would  consist  in  relating  social  philosophy 
to  a  way  of  looking  at  the  cosmos.  Here  two  plans  are 
possible.  Either  a  history  of  modern  philosophy  might  be 
presented  in  such  a  way  as  to  trace  the  gradual  develop- 
ment of  certain  philosophical  ideas  or  the  system  of  one  of 
the  great  philosophers  such  as  Kant  or  Hegel  might  be 
studied  in  detail.  The  criticism  usually  made  upon  the 
average  course  in  the  history  of  philosophy  is  that  it  dis- 
tracts rather  than  unifies  the  student's  mind.  He  passes 
from  one  system  to  another  so  rapidly  that  all  seems  chaos 
and  confusion.  The  fault  is  one  of  teaching  method  rather 
than  inherent  in  the  subject  matter  which  may  be  presented 
from  the  developmental  standpoint  so  as  to  show  the 
growth  of  a  unified  way  of  regarding  the  universe.     That 


A   Tentative  Curriculum.  145 

is,  the  emphasis  is  laid  on  the  common  characters  of  suc- 
cessive philosophies  rather  than  upon  various  differing 
details.  For  a  short  course,  however,  much  is  to  be  said 
in  favor  of  studying  a  single  system — one  great  man's  way 
of  conceiving  things  as  a  unity.'  It  is  not  even  desirable 
that  this  become  a  permanent  creed,  but  it  should  serve  as 
a  first  structure  to  be  renewed  and  remade,  but  never  as  a 
whole  to  be  abandoned — as  a  form  permanent,  however, 
the  content  may  change. 

If  the  question  be  asked  :  who  is  to  give  these  syn- 
thetic courses  ?  it  may  be  replied  that  at  first  a  number  of 
men  must  contribute — perhaps  one  for  the  sciences, 
another  for  physiography  and  history,  still  another  for  the 
social  sciences,  a  fourth  for  the  literature,  and  a  fifth  for  the 
courses  of  senior  year.  In  the  present  state  of  specializa- 
tion few  men  would  be  prepared  to  venture  far  beyond  the 
limits  of  their  particular  fields.  Yet  if  these  lecturers  by 
conference  and  discussion  would  work  out  in  detail  a  coher- 
ent articulated  scheme  and  then  each  would  do  his  part  in 
harmony  with  this  common  plan,  much  might  be  accom- 
plished at  once. 

It  seems  not  unreasonable  to  hope,  however,  that  in 
time  this  synthetic  service  will  itself  become  a  special 
function  to  which  a  man  will  devote  his  whole  time  and 
energy.  It  is  usual  to  deride  such  a  suggestion  as  im- 
plying that  one  person  can  master  the  whole  of  human 
knowledge — a  manifest  impossibility  if  by  mastery  is  meant 
an  acquaintance  with  all  the  details  of  all  departments. 
But  obviously  scientific  knowledge  has  been  organized  out 
of  details  and  the  general  principles  include  vast  areas  of 
particulars.  To  deny  that  one  man  can  gain  a  general 
grasp  of  these  principles  and  conceive  them  in  still  wider 

>  Vide  letter  of  advice  to  a  young  student  of  philosophy  from  Taine  ;    Pour  et 
eontre  V emeignement  philosophique,  pp.  162,  i6j. 


146  The  Social  Mind  and  Education. 

relations  of  unity,  is  by  implication  to  assert  that  men  have 
piled  up  more  knowledge  than  they  can  organize,  that 
specialization  instead  of  enriching  and  strengthening  the 
social  tradition  is  ever  loading  it  with  indigestible  facts. 

Such  in  barest  outline  is  a  plan  for  giving  greater  unity 
and  clearer  purpose  to  our  higher  education.  Like  all 
plans  it  is  in  itself  impotent.  It  is  presented,  however, 
with  the  hope  not  that  it  will  prove  adequate  in  all  its 
details,  but  that  it  may  at  least  suggest  a  general  end 
toward  which  the  work  of  our  undergraduate  curriculum 
ought  more  consciously  and  definitely  to  be  directed. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
I.     SOCIOLOGICAL. 

BOOKS. 

Bluntschli,  Johann  :   The  Theory  of  the  State  (Eng.  trans.). 

Chamberlain,  A.  F.  :   The  Child  and  Childhood  in  Folk  Thought. 

Comte,  Auguste  :  Coiirs  de philosophie positive  (6  vols.). 

De  Greef,  Guillaume  :  Introduction  h  la  sociologie  (2  vols.); 
L  evolution  des  croyances  et  des  doctrines  politiques  ;  Le  trans- 
formisme  social. 

Durkheim,  E.  :  Les  regies  de  la  mHhode  sociologique ;  De  la  di- 
vision du  travail  social. 

Flint,  Robert  :  Vico ;  The  History  of  the  Philosophy  of  History 
(France). 

Fouill^e,  Alfred  :  Le  niouveinent  positiviste  et  la  conception  socio- 
logique du  mond ;  La  science  sociale  contemporaine. 

Hobbes  :  Leviathan  (Molesworth  Ed.). 

Giddings,  Franklin  H.:   The  Principles  of  Sociology. 

Izoulet,  Jean  :  La  citS  nioderne. 

Le  Bon,  Gustave  :  Psychologic  desfoules. 

Lilienfeld,  Paul  :  Gedanken  Uber  die  social  Wissenschaft  der  Zu- 
kunft  (5  vols.). 

Locke  :  Political  Treatise. 

Machiavelli  :    The  Prince  (Morley's  Lib.). 

Mackenzie,  James  S.:  An  Introduction  to  Social  Philosophy. 

Montesquieu  :  L' esprit  les  lois  (tr.  by  Nugent). 

Paul,  H.  :  Principles  of  the  History  of  Language  (tr.  by  Strong). 

Perrier,  Ed. :  Les  colonics  ajiiuialcs. 

Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques  :  Discours  sur  Foriginc  et  les  fondements 
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Schaffle,  A.  E.  Fr. :  Bau  und  Lebcn  des  socialen  Korpers  (5  vols. ). 

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147 


4 


148  Bibliography. 


MAGAZINE   AND   REVIEW  ARTICLES. 

Bern^s,  M.  :  "  Sur  la  rnethode  de  la  sociologie,"  Revue  philo- 
sophiqiie,  Tome  XXIX.;  "La  Sociologie,"  Revue  de  meta- 
physique  et  de  morale,  Tome  III. 

Bosanquet,  Bernard:  "The  Relation  of  Sociology  to  Philoso- 
phy," Mind,  January,  1897. 

Hall,  G.  Stanley  :  "  The  Story  of  a  Sand-Pile,"  Scridner's  Maga- 
zine, Vol.  III.,  p.  690. 

Johnson,  J.  H.  :  "Rudimentary  Society  Among  Boys,"  J.  H.  U. 
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Tufts,  J.  H.:  "Recent  Sociological  Tendencies  in  France," 
American  Jouriial  of  Sociology,  January,  1896. 

Ward,  Lester  F. :  "The  Data  of  Sociology,"  American  Journal  of 
Sociology,  May,  1896 ;  "  Sociology  in  its  Relation  to  the  Social 
Sciences,"  American  Journal  of  Sociology,  July,  1895  ;  "Soci- 
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n.     PHILOSOPHICAL. 


Aristotle  :  Metaphysics  (tr.  by  McMahon). 

Amott,  Neil  :  Elements  of  Physics.  > 

Bacon,  Francis:  Novmn  Organum  (tr.  by  Dewey)  ;  InstauroHo 
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Bail,  W.  W.  R.:  A  Short  Account  of  the  History  of  Mathematics. 

Blum,  E. :  La  philosophic  des  scie7ices. 

Butcher,  L.  H.:  Some  Aspects  of  the  Greek  Genius. 

De  Candolle  :  Histoire  des  sciences  et  des  savants  (2d  ed. ). 

De  la  Grasserie,  R.:  De  la  classification,  objective  et  subjective, 
des  arts,  de  la  litterature  et  des  sciences. 

Descartes  :  Les principes  (Ed.  Liard). 

Falckenberg,  R. :  History  of  Modern  Philosophy  (tr.  by  Arm- 
strong). 

Fiske,  John  :  Outlines  of  Cosmic  Philosophy  (2  vols. ). 

Haeckel,  Ernst  H.:  Gesannnte  Popular e  Vortrdge. 

Hegel :  The  Philosophy  of  History  (tr.  by  Sibree)  ;  Encyclopddie 
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Herbart :  ^sthetische  Darstellung  der  Welt  (tr.  by  Felkin). 

Herder  :  Ideas  for  the  Philosophy  of  the  Histoiy  of  Mankind. 


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Mach,  E.  :  Popular  Scientific  Lectures  (tr.  by  McCormack). 

Mill,  John  Stuart  :  Dissertations  and  Discussions. 

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Oncken,  August :  Adam  Smith  u?id  Immanuel  Kant. 

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in  der  Entwickelung  der  Meiischengeschlechts. 
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III.     PSYCHOLOGICAL. 

BOOKS. 

Baldwin,  J.  Mark  :  ATental  Evolution  in  the  Child  and  the  Race. 

Dewey,  John  :  Psychology. 

Fouill^e,  Alfred  :  Psychologic  dcs  idcSs-forces  (2  vols.). 

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Lewes,   G.  H.  :    Problems  of  Life  and   Mind:    The    Study   of 

Psychology. 
Locke  :  Human  Understanding  (Ed.  by  Frazer). 
Preyer,  W. :  Infaiit  Mind  (tr.  by  Brown). 
Romanes,  George  H.:  Mental  Evolution  in  Man. 
Sully,  James  :  Studies  of  Childhood. 
Ward,  James  :  "Psychology,"  Encyclopcrdia  Britannica  (9th  ed.), 

Vol.  XX. 

REVIEW    ARTICLE. 

Foster,  H.  M. :  "Organic  Evolution  and  Mental  Elaboration," 
Mind,  October,  1895. 

IV.     PEDAGOGICAL. 

BOOKS. 

Blow,  Susan  E. :  Symbolic  Educatio7i. 

Compayr^,  Gabriel :  History  of  Pedagogy  (tr.  by  Payne). 

De  Garmo,  Charles  :  Herbart  and  the  Herbartians. 

De  Greef,  Guillaume  :  U  enseignement  integral  et  la  philosophic 
positive.  An  address  delivered  at  the  opening  of  the  New 
University  of  Brussels. 

Fouill^e,  Alfred  :  L cnseigjiement  au  point  de  vue  national. 

Guyau,  J.  M.  :  Education  and  Heredity  (tr.  by  Greenstreet). 

Harris,  W.  T. :  Report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Education,  1892-93, 
Vol.  II. 

Herbart  :  Allgemeine  Plidagogik  ;  Pddagogischen  Schriften. 

Hill,  Thomas  :   The  True  Order  of  Studies. 

Kant :  Pddagogik  (Ed.  von  Hartenstein),  Bd.  VIII. 

Parker,  F.  W. :   Talks  on  Pedagogics. 

Pestalozzi :  How  Gertrude  Teaches  Her  Children  (tr.  by  Hol- 
land and  Turner). 


Bibliography.  151 

Rein,  W. :  Outlines  of  Pedagogics  (tr.    by  C.  C.  and   I.  J.  Van 

Liew). 
Rein,  Pickel,  and  Scheller  :  Das  Erstc  Schuljahr. 
Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques  :  Entile  (tr.  by  Payne). 
Spencer,  Herbert  :  Education. 
Thomas,  Felix  :  La  suggestio7i :  son  role  dans  r  education. 

MAGAZINE   AND    REVIEW   ARTICLES. 

Dewey,  John  :  "The  Culture  Epoch  Theory,"  Second  Year  Book 
of  the  Herbart  Society. 

Eliot,  Charles:  "The  Unity  of  Educational  Reform,"  Educa- 
tional Review,  October,  1894. 

Geddes,  Patrick  :  "  Prospectus  of  the  Fifth  Session  of  a  Summer 
School  of  Arts  and  Science."  Reports  of  lectures  in  The 
Interpreter. 

Hailman,  W.  N. :  "Organic  Relations  of  Studies  in  Human 
Development."  Reprint  from  Proceedings  of  Jacksonville 
Conference. 

Harris,  W.  T.:  Nineteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Board  of 
Directors  of  the  St.  Louis  Piblic  Schools  (1872-73). 

Hinsdale,  B.  A.:  "The  Dogma  of  Formal  Culture,"  Educa- 
tional Review,  September,  1894. 

Jackman,  W.  S. :  "Correlation  of  Science  and  History,"  Educa- 
tional Review,  May,  1896. 

Ladd,  George  T. :  "  Essentials  of  a  Liberal  Education,"  Educa- 
tional Review,  October,  1895. 

Le  Conte,  Joseph :  "The  Effect  of  the  Theory  of  Evolution  on 
Education,"  Educational  Review,  September,  1895. 

Lowell,  James  Russell  :  Harvard  Anniversary  Address. 

Lukens,  H.  T. :  "The  Correlation  of  Studies,"  Educational 
Review,  November,  1895. 

McMurray,  C.  A.:  "The  Culture  Epochs,"  Second  Year  Book 
of  the  Herbart  Society. 

McMurray,  F.  A.:  "  The  Concentration  of  Studies,"  First 
Year  Book  of  the  Herbart  Society. 

Morris,  George  S.  :  "The  Philosophy  of  the  State  and  of  His- 
tory," Afethods  of  Teaching  and  Studying  History. 

Rein,  W. :  "Pestalozzi  and  Herbart,"  Forum,  May,  1896. 

Taine,  H.:  Letter  quoted  in  Pour  et  contre  T enseignement  phir 
losophique,  pp.  162-163. 


152  Bibliography. 


Thompson,  Anna  Boynton  :  "The  Educational  Value  of  His- 
tory," Educational  Review,  April,  1895. 

Van  Liew,  C.  C:  "The  Culture  Epoch  Theory,"  First  Herbart 
Year  Book. 

Report  of  the  Committee  of  Fifteen  on  "The  Correlation  of 
Studies"  (Annotated  by  G.  P.  Brown). 


INDEX. 


Agassiz,  L.,73. 
Analysis,  26,  36,  54. 
Andler,  Charles,  25. 
Anthropomorphism,  27,  50,  83,  84. 
Aquinas,  St.  Thomas,  53. 
Aristotle,  30,  31,  35,  40,  42,  52,  58. 
Arnott,  Neil,  46. 
Arts,  40. 
Augustine,  52. 
Autocracies,  20. 

Bacon,  Francis,  30,  43,  53,  54- 

Bacon,  Roger,  42. 

Bain,  Alexander,  33,  48. 

Baldwin,  J.  M.,  76,  78,  85,  94,  95,  99. 

Bernfes,  M.,  66,  69. 

Berthelot,  M.,  32. 

Beyer,  72. 

Bibliographies,  22. 

Bichat,  57. 

Biology,  57,  60,  61,  73. 

Blow,  S.  E.,  26. 

Blum,  E.,  49. 

Bluntschli,  J.,67. 

Bonnet,  25. 

Bourdon,  B.,  32. 

Buckle,  64. 

Burdin,  46. 

Butcher,  S.  H.,  115. 

Chamberlain,  A.  F.,78. 

Childhood  of  the  race,  69. 

Children's  thinking,  72-84. 

Child  study,  76. 

Christianity,  52. 

Classification  of  the  sciences,  28,29-31, 

40-49. 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  70. 
Committee  of  Fifteen,   Report  of,  no, 

114,  123. 
Communication,  17,  53. 
CompayrC,  G.,  41. 
Compulsion,  social,  14. 


Comte,  Auguste,  23,  26-30,  35,  37,  46,  49, 
51.  53.  56,  57.  60,  70,  71,  78,  79,  123. 

Concentration  of  studies,  106. 

Consciousness,  social,  general  defi- 
nition, 13,  i6,  68;  relation  to  social 
self-consciousness,  19,  20 ;  growth  of 
purpose,  23,  24 ;  contrast  with  social 
unconsciousness,  27-29. 

Contract,  80. 

Coordination  of  studies,  106. 

Correlation  of  studies,  106. 

Crowds,  17. 

Culture  Epoch  theory,  72,  81,  93,  96,  98, 
99- 

Curricula,  116,  118,  130-135, 137-146. 

Custom,  12,  81. 

Cuvier,  57. 

Dante,  41. 

Darwin,  Charles,  35,  60,  73. 

De  Candolle,  25. 

De  Garmo,  Charles,  72,  109. 

De  Greef,  G.,  15,  16,  19,  22,  42,  53,  56,  57, 

58,  61,  62,  64,  66,  79,  80,  115. 
Democracies,  20. 
Descartes,  44,  53. 
Dewey,  J.,  94,  100,  103,  106. 
Discipline,  mental,  118,  119,  122,  123. 
Discovery,  16. 
Division  of  mental  labor,  15,  17,  25,  26, 

51.77- 
Dollinger,  73. 
Dumas,  73. 
Durkheim,  E.,  14,  23,  25,  62,  74,  81. 

Edinburgh  Summer  School,  115,  141. 

Education,  as  a  social  function,  91, 116- 
X18;  aim  of,  92,  96,  97,  121  ;  both  social 
and  individu.'il,  92;  recapitulation  the- 
ory, 100;  differentiation  of  studies,  85, 
103;  need  of  unity  in  higher,  114  sq.; 
higher,  120  sq. 

Ego,  development  of,  86. 


154 


Index. 


Eliot,  Charles,  117. 
Embryology,  social,  77. 
Environment,  74,  95,  99,  112. 
Espinas,  67. 
Ethics,  social,  134,  144. 
Evolution,    mental,    75;    social,   24,  51, 
58 ;  universal,  50. 

Faculties,  college,  139. 

Falckenberg,  R.,  13,  17,  26. 

Fechner,  6i. 

Fiske,  John,  27,  37,  47,  60. 

Flint,  Robert,  25,  26,  29,  31,  33,  34,  38,  40, 

43.  48,  51.53.  54,59- 
Folk-psychology-,  67. 
Fostor,  H.  M.,  37. 

Fouill^e,  Alfred,  12,  46,  48,  62,  67,  91, 115. 
Froebel,  26. 

Galileo,  53. 

Geddes,  P.,  115. 

Giddings,  F.  H.,  12,  19,  57,  62. 

Goethe,  60,  70. 

Government,  20,  21. 

Grasserie,  R.  de  la,  35. 

Guyau,  J.  M.,  93,  99. 

Haeckel,  E.,73,  74,  75. 

Hailman,  W.  N.,  102. 

Hall,  G.  S.,77. 

Haller,  25. 

Happiness,  8g. 

Harris,  VV.  T.,  93,  114,  117,  124. 

Hartmann,  72,  76. 

Hegel,  33,  45,  46,  64,  70. 

Herbart,  56,  61,  70-72,  107. 

Herder,  70. 

Heredity,  82. 

Hill,  T.,  124. 

Hinsdale,  B.  A.,  118. 

Hobbes,  44,  58. 

Hodgson,  S.  H.,  32. 

Hofding,  H.,  76,  77,  86. 

Huxley,  T.  H.,  73. 

Imitation,  15. 

Induction  and  deduction,  100. 

Interest,  104. 

Izoulet,  J.,  20. 

Jackman,  W.  S.,  iii. 

James,  W.,  11,  13,  16,  24,  S2,  86,  130. 


Johnson,  G.  H.,  77. 
Jordan,  D.  S.,  141. 

Kant,  45,  70. 

Knowledge,  social,  21,  24,  39,  66. 

Laboratory  method,  120. 
Ladd,  G.  T.,  51,  121,  125. 
Lalande,  A.,  25,  40,  41,  49. 
Lamarck,  57,  60,  73. 
La  Mettrie,  56. 
Language,  12,  98,  no. 
Laplace,  56. 
Lazarus,  67. 
Le  Bon,  G.,  17,67. 
Le  Conte,  J.,  74,  121. 
Legislatures,  21. 
Leibnitz,  25,  45,  56. 
Lewes,  G.  H.,  13,  14,  16,  18. 
Liberal  arts,  42. 
Lilienfeld,  P.,  61,  62,  78. 
Locke,  44,  58. 
Lotze,  61. 
Lowell,  J.  R.,  121. 
Lukens,  H.  T.,  105,  107. 

Machiavelli,  58. 

Mach,  E.,  93. 

Mackenzie,  J.  S.,  34,  57,  63,  88-90,  92,  93. 

McMurray,  C.  A.,  82. 

McMurray,  F.  A.,  108,  iii. 

Memor>-,  social,  15,  18,  21,  22,  25,  29. 

Meyer,  35. 

Mill,  J.  S.,  47.  59. 

Mind,  social,  general  definition,  11,  67  ; 
dynamic  or  static,  15;  differentiated, 
16,  18  ;  organized,  17,  25  ;  distinguished 
from  individual,  18, 19,  91 ;  struggle  for 
unity,  23, 30,  $3  ;  development  of,  28,  29, 
35.  73.  79.  90  ;  purpose  in,  23,  24,  34,  68, 
69>  79.  91 ;  philosophy  a  synthesis  of, 
38,  73 ;  individuals  as  organs  of,  52,  68. 

Montesquieu,  58. 

Morris,  G.  S.,  129. 

Natural  selection,  94. 
Newton,  25. 

Oncken,  August,  59. 
Organic  concept,  57,  60,  62. 

Parallelism  in  individual  and  race  de- 
velopment, 67-71,  80,  90,  96. 


Index. 


155 


Parker,  F.  W.,  in. 

Paul,  68,  98,  108. 

Payne,  W.  H.,  12. 

Pedagogy,  93. 

Perrier,  E.,  49. 

Personality,  87-90. 

Personality,  social,  67,  68,  69,  89. 

Pestalozzi,  71,  99,  106. 

Philosophy,  synthetic  nature,  30-36,40; 
a  science  of  the  sciences,  38 ;  classi- 
fying   function,  40-49;    theology,   52, 

53- 
Physiocrates,  58. 
Physiography,  141. 
Plato,  31,  52. 
Pleasure,  89. 
Preyer,  76. 

Primitive  thought,  22,  82,  83. 
Printing,  17. 
Psychogenesis,  75,  76. 
Psychology,  56,  61. 

Quadrivium,  41. 
Quesnay,  58. 

Race  development,  69,  70,  71,  77,  78. 
Recapitulation  theor>',  67,  69,  70,  72,  73, 

74.  77.  78,  96. 
Rein,  VV.,  71,  72,  107. 
Research,  120. 
Romanes,  75,  76,  86, 
Rousseau,  71,  loi. 
Royce,  Josiah,  32,  35,  37,  56. 

Schaffle,  A.  E.  Fr.,  12,  21,61,62,78,  79. 

Scholasticism,  53. 

Sciences,  nature  of,  25;    growth  of,  26, 

54,  56  ;  order  of  development,  28-29  ; 

organism  of,  33-35,  37,  45,  134;  differ 

from   philosophy,   35 ;    unification    of, 

39,  50 ;  origin  of,  40,  83 ;  abstract  and 

concrete,  47,  48. 
Self,  idea  of,  88-90. 
Self-consciousness,  social,  19,  20,  23,  24, 

25.  34.  36.  37.  55.  59.  68. 
Seth,  A.,  38. 
Shields,  C.  W.,  35,  48. 
Short-cuts  in  evolution,  78,  94,  95,  97,  98, 

100,  loi,  105,  135. 
Small,  A.  W.,  62. 
Smith,  A.,  59. 


Social  philosophy,  39,  52-65,  134. 

Social  problems,  142-143.. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  24,  27,  29,  30,  35,  37, 
40,47,48,  60,  61,  73,  74,  75,  78,98,99, 
loi. 

Spinoza,  58. 

Stanley,  48. 

Steinthal,  67. 

St.  Simon,  46. 

Studies,  85,  102;  differentiation  of,  104, 
105;  correlation  of,  106-112;  liberal, 
121  ;  isolation  of,  123;  classification  of, 
124  sq.;  requirements  of,  128;  unity 
of,  130-134- 

Suggestion,  98,  99. 

Sully,  J.,  76,  83,  84,  85,  98,  103. 

Syllogism,  social,  loi. 

Synthesis,  26,  31,  36,  54. 

Synthetic  instruction,  137-146. 

Taine,  H.,  145. 

Tarde,  G.,  12,  14,  19,  20,  26,  35,62,  81,  loi, 

118. 
Theology,  52,  55. 
Thomas,  F.,  99. 
Thompson,  A.  B.,  121. 
Threshold  of  consciousness,  86. 
Toynbee,  A.,  136. 
Tradition,  15,  18,  22,  25,  30,  36,  37,  49,  84, 

91.94- 
Treviranus,  60,  73. 
Trivium,  41. 
Tufts,  J.  H.,  68,  89,  92. 
Turgot,  59. 

Unconsciousness,  social,  27,  28,  80. 
Unity  of  knowledge,  114  sq. 

Van  Liew,  C.  C.,8i. 

Vico,  57,  58. 

Vogt,  72,  73. 

Von  Baer,  35,  57,  60,  73. 

Ward,  J.,  82,  89. 

Ward,  L.  F.,  16,  19,  20,  31 ,  34,  38,  48,  6a, 

102,  119. 
Whcwell,  William,  39,  42,  50. 
Wolff,  25,  45,  73. 
Wundt,  35,  6i,6S,  126. 

Ziller,  70,  72,  81,  107. 


ERRATUM. 
On  page  93,  note  2,  "  Mack  "  should  read  "  Mach." 


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